


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


THE 


LED-HORSE CLAIM 


& Eomattce of a fHnuttg Camp 


BY 

MARY HALLOCK FOOTE 

AUTHOR OF “ FRIEND BARTON’S CONCERN,” “ A STORY OF 
THE DRY SEASON,” ETC. 


ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR 




BOSTON 

JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 

1883 


'x>~V b . 


e 




Copyright , /<S<S2 

By Mary Hallock Foote. 


^4 // rights reserved. 


\ 
S '* •*' 

1 , V 


University Press: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge 


CONTENTS 


Chap. Page 

I. The New Mining Camp 9 

II. The Turning of a Windlass 16 

III. The Situation 28 

IV. The Younger Sons’ Ball 40 

V. A Philosopher of the Camp 68 

VI. Boundary Monuments 83 

VII. The Barricade 106 

VIII. The Shoshone Kitchen . 131 

IX. Between Daylight and Dark .... 149 

X. Conrath comes Home 166 

XI. The Honors of the Camp 189 

XIL On the Down Grade 205 

XIII. Number Fifty-two 215 

XIV. Little Best 238 

XV. Old Pathways 248 

XVI. The Paths meet 267 

XVII. Exit Shoshone 275 




\ 




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Underground Frontispiece 

At the Foot of the Pass 10 

The Led-Horse in Council 38 

Between Daylight and Dark 154 

“ She doubted long ” 236 

Cecil’s Ring 276 




y 


{ 



1 




THE LED-HOESE CLAIM. 


I. 

THE NEW MINING-CAMP. 

The ark of the mining interests, which had 
drifted about unsteadily after the break in 
bonanza stocks in the summer of 18 TT, had 
rested, a year or two later, in a lofty valley 
of Colorado, not far from the summit of that 
great “ divide ” which parts the waters of the 
Continent. It rested doubtfully, awaiting 
the olive-leaf of Eastern capital. Through the 
agency of those uncertain doves of promise, the 
promoter of mining schemes and the investor in 
the same, the olive-leaf was found, and, before 
the snows had blocked the mountain-passes, 
the gay, storm-beleaguered camp, in the words 
of its exhibitory press, began to “ boom.” 

The snows of that bleak altitude give their 
first warning while the September sun is still 




10 


THE LED-HOliSE CLAIM . 


strong; by November they may be said to 
prevail ; but no disheartening combination 
of bad weather, worse roads, and worst ac- 
commodations at the journey’s end, could de- 
ter the pioneers from bearing a city into the 
unfriendliest spot where such exotic growth 
ever flourished. Their movement had the 
absolute conviction, the devotedness, of a 
crusade. They pressed onward, across the 
Great South Park, following its white wagon- 
trails which rise and sink with the long swells 
of that arch as an sea ; pausing in the dreary 
valley at the foot of the pass, which shelters 
the caravansary-like town of Fairplay ; strug- 
gling upward, in the cold light of early morn- 
ing, along the mountain sides ; resting again 
at the last stage-station above the timber-line, 
where the tough fir forests bend, and fail, and 
finally give up altogether the ascent of those 
bare slopes, ever whitening, to the pitiless re- 
gion of lasting snow ; on again into the stren- 
uous air of the summits, following the pass as 
it staggers through the wild canons ; dizzily 
winding, by weary grades, down to the deso- 
late land of promise. 

Foremost in the strange procession were 


AT THE FOOT OF THE PASS. 







Copy negative t» ^ • and filed 
in series LOoi>Z 62 : 


THE NEW MINING-CAMP. 


11 


seen those wandering Ishmaelite families whose 
sun-darkened faces peer from the curtains of 
their tents on wheels, along every road which 
projects the frontier farther into the wilder- 
ness. 

The discontent and the despair of older 
mining-camps in their decadence hastened to 
mingle their bitterness in the baptismal cup 
of the new one. It exhibited in its earliest 
youth every symptom of humanity in its de- 
cline. The restless elements of the Eastern 
cities ; the disappointed, the reckless, the men 
with failures to wipe out, with losses to re- 
trieve or to forget, the men of whom one 
knows not what to expect, were there ; but 
as its practical needs increased and multi- 
plied, and its ability to pay for what it re- 
quired became manifest, the new settlement 
began to attract a safer population. 

Even the hopes of the gold-seeker must be 
fed and clothed at an altitude which acts like 
the law of natural selection on those who as- 
pire to breathe its thin air, sparing only the 
sound of heart and lung, and fanning the 
nerve-fires into breathless, wasteful energy. 
The producer answered the call of the con- 


12 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


sumer. Men of all trades followed the miner. 
The professions followed the trades, and were 
represented, generally, by men in their youth. 

It was, perhaps, this immense, though un- 
disciplined, force of sanguine youth which 
saved the city. The dangerous elements of 
the camp — the mud, the weeds, and the drift- 
wood which would have choked a more 
sluggish current — were floated and swept 
onward by its strong tide. The new board 
sidewalks resounded to the clean step of 
many an indomitable, bright-faced boy, cadet 
of some good Eastern family, and neophyte 
in the business of earning a living, with a 
joyous belief in his own abilities and a clean 
& record to imperil in proving them. The older 
men, who had come with a slightly shaken 
faith in themselves, looked half compassion- 
ately, half enviously, at these knights of the 
virgin shield. 

It is said that the first woman of the camp 
crossed the range on foot with her husband, a 
German miner, and helped him set up the 
“ poor Lar ” of their pine-board shanty dur- 
ing the early snows of the first autumn. But 
those accumulated snows were wasting under 


f 


THE NEW MINING-CAMP. 13 

the May sun, and the pass, where they still 
lay deep, could be traced from a long way off, 
— a line of white crossing the purple summit 
of the range, — before the steady migration of 
wives ai\d children began. 

It was a grim sort of nest-building that 
went on, with discordant chorus of hammer 
and saw, through the spring and summer and 
late into .the fall of the second year ; but, 
whatever its subsequent troubles may have 
been, there was a great show of domestic 
felicity in the camp at this period. Every 
incoming stage renewed the bridals of some 
long-separated couple. Each man who could 
not send for his own wife, sympathized, with 
boyish gayety, in the regeneration of his 
more fortunate comrade. The shop-windows 
moderated their display of velvet riding-hab- 
its, embroidered silk stockings, and pink silk 
peignoirs* trimmed with cascades of imitation 
lace, — their temptations to feminine purchas- 
ers taking the more domestic form of babies’ 
knitted hoods and sacques, crash towelling, 
and the newest patterns in cretonne. Every 
house over which a woman presided prac- 
tised a hospitality out of all proportion, in its 


14 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


scope, to the capacities of the rude tabernacle. 
Every young wife, in her access of happiness, 
felt a supreme pity for the great army of the 
unmarried that nightly walked the turbulent 
streets, between flashes of light from Terpsi- 
chorean retreats, and cold glimpses out of 
the raw city through the open spaces of un- 
built blocks, toward the snow-lit peaks. Many 
an unshaven bachelor would have smiled 
with cheerful scorn at this missionary spirit 
in his neighbor’s wife ; a few would have 
misunderstood it ; many profited by it ; and 
many, especially the very young men, went 
their way, too watchfully absorbed in the 
keen-edged life of the place to be conscious 
of any spiritual or social need. 

Each night, as the constellations mounted 
guard above the pass, a redder galaxy lit the 
dark encampment of hills, where lonely camp- 
fires, outposts of the settlement, far up on 
the wooded slopes, signalled the lights from 
the active mines, or the flaring beacons of 
smelting-furnaces in the gulch. Two of these 
distant human lights, shining on the oppo- 
site slopes of a fir-lined canon, which divided 
them like a river of darkness, had a neighborly 


THE NEW MINING-CAMP. 


15 


look of sympathy in their isolation. The fir- 
darkened canon was called Led-Horse Gulch. 
The lights which beckoned to each other across 
it shone from the shaft-houses of the Led-Horse 
and Shoshone mines, between which, it was 
said, there was open suspicion on the one side 
and bad faith on the other. 


16 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


II. 

THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 

One August morning of the cool, autumnal 
summer, a lady, younger than the youngest 
of the youthful wives of the camp, whose 
pure, unsunned complexion proved her but 
lately arrived, rode down into Led-Horse 
Gulch from the Shoshone side, and, following 
the trail upward among the aspens, drew rein 
at the mouth of a small shaft where two men 
were working a windlass. 

She wore no habit; the plaited skirt of her 
cloth walking-dress permitted her stirrup-foot 
to show, and a wide-brimmed straw hat shaded 
the heightened bloom in her cheek. There 
was an unpremeditation in her dress, and in 
vagrant gait of her pony, which might 
,.^e accounted for this aimless halt at the 
top of the shaft. 

She watched, with idle interest, the taut, 
wavering rope, as it coiled on the windlass. 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 17 


The men were hoisting a loaded bucket. She 
appeared indifferent to their respectfully curi- 
ous glances ; they were classified in her mind 
as part of the novel human machinery of the 
place. She had a dimly appreciative eye for 
the fine curves of their powerful backs, as 
they leaned and recovered with the circling 
cranks that creaked with their weight ; other- 
wise they were not present to her conscious- 
ness. From her saddle she could not look 
far down into the dark hole and see the 
bucket, just visible one moment, then enlarg- 
ing rapidly with the shortening rope ; nor 
could she perceive that it was loaded, not with 
precious ores, but with a bulk of that common 
human clay of which we are all but metamor- 
phic variations. She was, in fact, less inter- 
ested in the thing coming up than in the 
curiously fatalistic manner of its coming. The 
wavering rope described a shorter and shorter 
circle ; its vibrations ended with a sharp shud- 
der ; a few more, slower turns of the crank, 
and the man had arrived at the surface. 

Swinging himself, with a practised motion, 
from the bucket to a seat on the collar of the 
shaft, he looked across at the young girl with 
2 


18 


THE LED -HORSE CLAIM . 


undisguised admiration. The look recalled 
her at once from the vague, impersonal mood 
of her ride. 

The men at the cranks let the bucket down 
with a run, straightened their backs, and 
wiped their damp foreheads and necks. 

The unembarrassed youth who rose to his 
feet, taking off his hat with a bright, interroga- 
tive smile, was also a part of the human ma- 
chinery of the place, but his part in relation 
to the miners at the cranks was that of the 
throttle-valve rather than the driving-wheels. 

The girl acknowledged his salute by a hot 
blush and the slightest of bows, as she turned 
her horse’s head sharply away from the shaft. 
Her position in the face of this new element 
had become untenable, and she abandoned it 
frankly, making no attempt to explain the 
unexplainable. It was not her custom (so she 
indignantly apostrophized her girl’s wounded 
dignity) to be riding about the camp alone, 
and waiting at prospect-holes for handsome 
young men to be hoisted out of them ! It was 
an incongruous accident of that incongruous 
place ! 

She had, even with her small knowledge of 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 19 


young men, perceived this one’s quality in his 
face and manner ; but she suffered from the 
youthful conviction that her own personality 
must remain inevitably at the mercy of the 
moment’s accidental disguise. 

Guiding her horse confusedly over the bro- 
ken ground, she was startled by a peremptory 
shout from behind her. 

“ Look out there, Abrams ! The old shaft ! ” 

A miner coming up the hill, warned by the 
shout, promptly caught her horse’s bridle, and 
forced him back from a sunken space of fresh 
earth and stones. 

The young man who had given the timely 
order was now at her side. He picked up her 
whip. The hat he lifted as he offered it was 
a very bad one, but the head it did its best 
to disfigure might have been modelled for the 
head of a young Jason at the time his per- 
sonal appearance did him such good service 
at the court of King iEetes. 

“In another second you would have been 
thrown. This is an old prospect-hole filled 
with loose earth. Your horse would have sunk 
in it to his knees,” he protested, in answer to 
her look of vexed surprise. 


20 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ I wonder my brother permits such a trap to 
be uncovered,” the girl said, with the empha- 
sis of one who finds unexpected relief in an- 
other’s responsibility for an awkward situation. 

“ I have not the pleasure of knowing your 
brother — but the Led-Horse, I believe, has 
only one superintendent,” — he took off his 
hat again with a gayly ironical bow — “ who 
is at your service, if you will please to com- 
mand him.” 

“Am I not on Shoshone ground?” The 
question was half an assertion. 

“ I think not. The location stakes follow 
the gulch, a little on this side of it. You are 
now about one hundred and fifty feet within 
the Led-Horse lines.” 

The young girl could not help smiling at 
her own discomfiture, when it had reached 
this point. She hoped the superintendent of 
the Led-Horse would pardon her for trespass- 
ing, and for criticising his management. 

The superintendent of the Led-Horse gal- 
lantly replied that he could not allow her to 
call her visit a trespass, and if she liked to 
ride over his prospect-holes, he would have 
them all boarded over in that hope. 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 21 


She made no reply to this somewhat derisive 
suggestion, and her host of the Led-Horse 
kept the silence penitently, as he walked at 
her side through the flickering aspens. 

When they had crossed the gulch, he as- 
sured her that she was now unmistakably on 
Shoshone ground, and they parted, with a 
slightly exaggerated gravity on both sides. 

He watched her climbing the hill among 
the pine trunks that rose rigidly above the 
fringe of “ quaking aspens.” Her light figure 
bent and swayed with her horse’s strong up- 
ward strides. On the hill-top it was outlined 
a moment against the fervent blue of the mid- 
day sky, and then sank out of sight on the 
other side. 

The young superintendent now turned his 
attention, with a reflected interest, on himself. 
He looked himself over, in his close-buttoned 
pea-jacket, and leggings, buckled to his knees, 
with the cheerful unconcern of a man who is 
well aware that no tailor’s measurements can 
altogether frustrate those of nature, at her 
best. 

Had Hilgard been born ten or fifteen years 
sooner, he might have won more honor in 


22 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


the camps and fields of the civil war, than 
he was likely to gain in frontier mining- 
camps. He would have been the idol of his 
men, the life of his mess, — a leader of for- 
lorn hopes and desperate charges. His rich- 
blooded beauty would have wrung the hearts 
of susceptible maidens, marking him in the 
ranks of those about to die, jvhen the regi- 
ments for the front marched by in farewell 
pomp. Like the plume of Navarre, it would 
have blazed in the thickest of the fight, and 
would have been quenched, perhaps, on one 
of those reefs of the dead, which showed, 
after the battle, where the wildest shocks of 
assault had met the sternest resistance. It 
would have marked him a victim without 
blemish, fit for the sacrifice. 

But in the less heroic time in which his lot 
was cast, and in a crude community of trans- 
planted lives, adjusting themselves to new 
conditions, Hilgard’s excess of good looks 
was a positive inconvenience. The camp, at 
that period of its existence, took more thought 
for its roots than its blossoms. Hilgaro’S 
splendid efflorescence was looked upon with 
a certain suspicion by the sturdy, masculine 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 23 ' 

growths around him. Ugly men who relied 
upon their fruits, and felt that nature had 
disguised them, were not likely to enjoy it. 
Men with a small personal vanity of their 
own resented it, as a form of insolence, in 
their fellow-man. It attracted all the bale- 
ful types of womanhood, while many of the 
feminine bulwarks of respectability in the 
camp regarded it askance as an apotheosis 
of the physical life. Not a few of these ladies, 
especially those whose own personal attrac- 
tions were not conspicuous, honestly doubted 
if the virtues of faithfulness and self-denial 
could be found in conjunction with a lively 
eye-beam, a short upper lip, a head easily 
erect above a pair of powerful shoulders, and 
an exuberance of color and movement ex- 
pressive of much unused vitality. Whatever 
general foundation there may be for such a 
prejudice, the picturesque theories current in 
the camp reconciling it, in Hilgard’s case, 
with his isolated life and obvious indifference 
to the social allurements around him, were 
faf from the prosaic truth. 

Hilgard’s life was as simple and severe in 
its routine as if nature had clothed his soul 


24 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


in sackcloth instead of purple. It had one 
immediate object, — the prosperity of the 
Led-Horse, — to which he considered himself 
pledged. There was another object, more 
remote, but more vital and permanent : the 
education of liis two half-brothers, — young 
lads left to his sole care by the death of both 
father and mother. Hilgard’s own education 
had been at the mercy of the sad breaks in 
the lives of those who had watched over it. 
He was often lonely, as the captain of a bark 
on a long cruise is lonely in mid-ocean, — but 
he was in no doubt about his course. He 
was not restless from uncertainty of purpose. 
He had a fine, youthful scorn of sudden love, 
or any sentiment bordering on it. It was his 
lonely life, perhaps, which gave such promi- 
nence in his thoughts to the small incident of 
the morning. He would hardly have admitted 
that it was anything in the girl herself. Yet 
her face and her slender figure, undulating 
upward to the sunny hill-top, were still 
vividly before his eyes. He had the keen 
instinct about women which men lose when 
they care for them too much. All his la- 
tent reverence and ideality had responded to 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 25 


the look in her eyes as they had rested a mo- 
ment on his. She had blushed, but with a 
proud, shy girl’s disgust at a false position ; 
not helplessly, like a fool, he said to himself. 
Then he grew hot, thinking of his own care- 
less manner to her, which so ill expressed 
his sense of her difference from the ordinary 
pretty girl. If he ever saw her again — of 
course he would see her again ! She was his 
neighbor, the fair Shoshone — Conrath’s sis- 
ter, whose arrival from the East he had heard 
of in the camp. Surely she had “ snatched 
a grace ” beyond the rules of kinship ! 

A fragment of a Scotch song, long silent 
in his memory, woke suddenly, like the first 
bluebird’s note in spring. All the songs and 
scraps of poetry in which his vagrant moods 
had been wont to find expression, had been 
locked in the frosty constriction of his new 
and perplexing responsibilities : — 

“ O lassie ayont the hill, 

Come ower the tap o’ the hill ! 

Come ower the tap, wi’ the breeze o’ the hill,” — 

he hummed to himself, as he strode through 
the aspens that shivered in the sunshine. 


26 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


The smooth-stemmed aspens themselves were 
not more daintily, slenderly rounded, or more 
unobstrusive in their clear, cool colors. Hil- 
gard did not like showy girls. He held, with 
most young men, very positive opinions as to 
the kind of girl he liked, when in reality it 
was quality, not kind, that interested him. 

“ Con, my boy ! ” he recklessly apostro- 
phized his troublesome neighbor, “ you ’ve got 
my ore in your ore-bins, but if it came to a 
settlement for damages, there is metal of 
yours that is more attractive ! ” 

The next instant he rebuked himself for 
his profanity. His spirits were rising into 
rebellious gayety, animated by the dramatic 
implacability of the circumstances that hedged 
in his lovely foewoman. He laughed aloud, 
thinking of the innocent audacity with which 
she had crossed the contested line, and waited 
for him at the top of his own shaft. 

But the mood did not long abide with him. 
The first bluebird’s note is an uncertain har- 
binger of spring. 

As he climbed the trail to his own side of 
the gulch and looked across to the Shoshone’s 
shaft-houses, its new ore-sheds, the procession 


THE TURNING OF A WINDLASS. 27 



of ore-teams loading at the dumps, and all* its 
encroaching activities in full play, and then 
reviewed his • own empty bins and barren 
underground pastures, the color of romance 
died out of the prospect. 

He walked back to his office, and took up 
a package of letters from his desk. The one 
from the president of his company he opened 
first. It was an order to shut down ! 


28 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


III. 

THE SITUATION. 

The Led-Horse had a somewhat dubious 
reputation in mining circles. The generally 
unsatisfactory condition of its affairs might 
have been described in the words of a clever 
man’s impromptu abstract of life, — “Too 
poor to pay, too rich to quit.” 

It had opened brilliantly, on a promising 
vein which had been “ stoped out ” to a con- 
siderable depth, and then had become sud- 
denly barren. The ore-bearing rock was 
there, precisely similar in character to that 
which had yielded two hundred ounces of 
silver to the ton, but the silver was not 
there. 

The expenses of the mine rapidly turned 
its balance the wrong way. There were calls 
from the home office for retrenchment, and 
appeals for money from the mine. Its con- 
dition was that of a young man who has 


THE SITUATION. 


29 


spent a small patrimony without having fitted 
himself for earning his own living. It was 
altogether probable that the capacity for 
earning a living was there, but it had become 
necessary that no time should be lost in 
developing it. 

There was a change in the management, 
even as the young man, in his altered circum- 
stances, turns from the counsellors of his days 
of extravagance, to others, better acquainted 
with hard work and economy. At this junc- 
ture, Hilgard had been sent out with a few 
thousands to expend in enabling the Led- 
Horse to support himself, and, if possible, to 
lay up money in dividends ; but the dividends 
were, as yet, a long way in the future. 

Hilgard had had four years’ practical ex- 
perience in mines, but this was his first essay 
in management. He was well aware that he 
was making it under great disadvantages. 
He could not put ore into a barren vein, and 
a prolonged period of unproductive expen- 
diture in prospecting for ore would, in the 
event of not finding any, count heavily against 
him in his opening career. It was inevitable 
that the manager of a mine should be con- 


30 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


sidered successful according to his fulfilment 
of the hopes of the owners ; especially when 
the owners were half the width of the con- 
tinent away, and generally ignorant of the 
conditions which affect success in the man- 
agement of mines. 

The Shoshone had been in barren rock for 
many months. It had small capital and less 
credit, when, a short time after Hilgard’s 
management began, a sudden change took 
place in the aspect of its affairs. At the 
change of shifts, a daily increasing number of 
men were seen around its shaft-houses ; new 
ore-sheds were put up ; its long unused wagon- 
roads became deeply rutted by the heavy ore- 
teams going and returning from the smelters, 
and a rumor pervaded the camp that the lucky 
Shoshones had “ struck it away up in the 
hundreds,” and were shipping ore at the rate 
of fifty tons a day. 

Soon after the Shoshone’s prosperity be- 
came evident, West, the mining-captain of the 
Led-Horse, communicated to his chief his 
suspicion that the Shoshone strike had been 
made on Led-Horse ground. From the lower 
drifts, the sounds which came, through the 


THE SITUATION. 


31 


intervening rock, from the new Shoshone 
workings, indicated, to an experienced ear, 
that they had crossed the boundary line be- 
tween the claims. 

Hilgard had proposed to Conrath, the 
superintendent of the Shoshone, that a survey 
should be made through the Shoshone drifts, 
hut at the expense of the Led-Horse, to prove 
that the boundary line was intact. He put 
the whole matter lightly, as a possible mistake 
which either party might have made. Con- 
rath took it by no means lightly. He even 
appeared to seize upon it as an occasion for 
giving expression to a latent feeling of antag- 
onism toward Hilgard, which the latter had 
not been entirely unconscious of. Conrath 
refused to admit the possibility of his having 
crossed the line, or to permit any one to 
explore the Shoshone workings for any pur- 
pose whatever. This unexpected irritability 
on the subject could but increase Hilgard’s 
suspicions. The sounds through the rock, 
which had been at first very faint, having 
become, day by day, more distinct, Hilgard 
had started his defensive drift in the direction 
of these sounds. 


32 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


The Led-Horse had not as yet achieved its 
independence of Eastern capital. The few 
thousands which had been subscribed at the 
beginning of Hilgard’s management had been 
spent in “ prospecting,” with no result as yet, 
except a little low-grade ore and “favorable 
indications.” The small working force of the 
mine had been concentrated upon the defensive 
drift, which was in barren rock. 

At this juncture, while the mine was depend- 
ent on its monthly drafts from the East, the 
last of these drafts came back dishonored. 

It was a time of bitter excitement to Hil- 
gard. Already the unfortunate Led-Horse, 
with its hopes and its reverses, had become 
to him almost like some living thing in his 
care. It was more than a feeling of pride in 
his work — it was a passionate personification 
of it, — more especially since he had been beset 
by treachery without, as well as by poverty 
within. Hilgard was experiencing the well- 
known effect of isolation and responsibility 
upon a concentrated nature cut off from 
those varied outlets for its energy which the 
life of cities and large communities affords. 
He wrote long, passionate letters on the situa- 


THE SITUATION . 


33 


tion to the home office, where they awoke 
trouble and perplexity in the mind of the 
anxious president, but failed materially to 
alter the situation. 

It was during the sultry weather of early 
September when these vehement appeals from 
the desperate executive in the West poured in 
on the worried administration in the East. 

The Led-Horse proudly boasted in its pros- 
pectuses that its stock was “ non-assessable.” 
The men who held it were engaged in larger 
schemes, which made the fate of the Led- 
Horse of comparatively little consequence. 
They were scattered far and wide ; on board 
yachts, at remote fishing and hunting grounds, 
at watering-places, at home and abroad. To 
hold a timely meeting of stockholders under 
these circumstances would have puzzled the 
most active administration. 

It was undeniable that, beyond the office 
which bore its name, the crisis in the affairs 
of the Led-Horse made not even a ripple on 
the “ street.” 

“ A draft for two thousand, promptly, will 
save us!” Hilgard wrote. “Another week 
will drive the drift through to the Shoshone 
3 


34 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


workings, then we can put up a barricade — 
shut down — and go into court with a clear 
case.” 

The president trusted, in his reply, that 
the “barricade” would be unnecessary. He 
deprecated any manifestation in the direction 
of expected or intended violence. The law 
alone could decide these points, and with this 
ultimate decision in view he advised that an 
injunction be got out against the suspected 
parties, and evidence collected to support it, 
while he, in the East, would do his best to 
provide money for conducting the subsequent 
suit for damages. For the payment of the 
running expenses, Hilgard must absolutely 
rely on his own resources, or else shut down. 
The president concluded by adjuring him to 
satisfy himself that his suspicion was correct 
before taking any steps in regard to an in- 
junction. 

Hilgard leaned back in his chair. He was 
mentally replying to the letter he held in his 
hand. 

44 The 4 resources ’ I am to depend on are in 
the hands of the Shoshones, — the proof of 
my 4 suspicion ’ is there, — the evidence for 


THE SITUATION. 


35 


the injunction is there, — the question is how 
am I to get there ! ” He pushed his chair 
back impatiently. “ Can’t they understand 
that it ’s impossible to shut down with a gang 
of men unpaid ! ” 

It had taken a week for his first pro- 
test against the order to reach the office ; 
two weeks for repeated letters to make, so 
it seemed, any impression on that far-off East 
to which he looked for succor. After three 
weeks of waiting the reply had come, and it 
had brought him only into closer contact with 
a growing dread, — a dread of the final resort 
to those wild counsels of primitive justice, 
from which he felt the strong recoil which 
marks the passage from irresponsible boyhood 
to manhood. 

The first overt act was before him which 
would bring him into sharp personal contact 
with Conrath. The act was now become inev- 
itable, and whether the truth of his suspicion 
were proved by it or not, the hostility on Con- 
rath’s part would follow with certainty. 

He went out into the cool starlight and 
walked about on the bare space of trodden 
earth outside his office-door. 


36 


THE LED-IIORSE CLAIM. 


At sunset the restless winds, whirling in a 
dervish-like dance along the highways of the 
camp, scattering straws and chips and scraps 
of paper, and sinking as suddenly as they 
rose, in abject heaps of dust by the roadside, 
had fainted and died away, as if their souls 
had departed in the soft breeze that wan- 
dered, soughing, up the gulch. 

Sounds of music floated up from the camp, 
where it sparkled like a restless reflection of 
the night sky in the dark valley below. The 
lights in the two shaft-houses burned warily, 
eye to eye, across the gulch. 

“ 0 lassie ayont the hill ! ” — the words which 
had fitfully recurred in his mind through its 
late preoccupations, came back now with a 
wistful note. The sweet lassie had kept on 
her own side of the hill, and he had never 
gone over to find her. He had never seen 
her since she had vanished below the sun- 
illumined hill-top. 

Where was she to-night ? — dancing at the 
ball of the “Younger Sons,” perhaps, to that 
music which came faintly to his ear, — or alone, 
in the hostile Shoshone camp ? Conrath had 
gone over the range two days ago. He liked 


THE SITUATION. 


37 


better to think of her alone, though it could 
be no part of his to comfort her. Somehow 
he did not find the dramatic nature of the situ- 
ation as exhilarating as it had seemed on the 
day of her innocent invasion. 

He went down the hill to a little cabin built 
against its steepest side, where West sat by 
his fire, moodily smoking and communing with 
himself, after the manner of lonely men. 

He was a slenderly built, wiry man, of about 
thirty, with a nervous mouth and a quiet blue 
eye, which could kindle quickly, as it did now 
at the sound of Hilgard’s step and his bright, 
authoritative voice. He got up and gave his 
only chair to his young chief, drawing forward 
an empty powder-keg and seating himself on 
its inverted bottom. Hilgard lit a cigarette 
and sat down astride of the chair with his 
arms across the back. Both men glowered at 
the fire in silence. 

“ A letter came from the 4 Old Man ’ to- 
day,” Hilgard presently said. “ It ’s no use, 
West. The thing is narrowing down to just 
this, — we ’ve got to get into the Shoshone 
workings.” 

West looked up quickly. 


38 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ If Conrath won’t go over the ground with 
us, we must go over it alone, and take the risk 
of his catching us in there.” 

West smoked hard for a minute. 

“ I could have got in there long ago, sir, if 
you ’d said the word.” 

“ I did n’t want to say the word ! It ’s an 
ugly thing to do, — creeping about another 
man’s mine to find out if he ’s a thief and a 
liar ! ” 

“ Gash can lie ; he ’s an old hand at this 
game. He made his boast in Headwood 
that he could always find plenty of ore as 
long as his neighbors had any. It ’s like as 
not he ’s fooled Conrath all through. When 
he struck that streak of ore he could n’t keep 
from followin’ it, any more ’n you kin keep 
a hound off a bear-track. When shall I get 
in there, sir ? ” 

“ You’re not going in, West. I’ll have a 
surveyor up from the camp to run the end line 
across, and get the distance to the Shoshone 
shaft ; then I ’ll get underground, somehow, 
with a pocket compass.” 

“ You ’d better let me go down, sir.” 

“ It can’t be done that way. I ’ve got to 


THE SITUATION . 


39 


give my affidavit to get out the injunction on. 
Then we ’ll drive that drift through, till we 
can swear what ground we ’re on ! ” 

“ It ’s a good time to go in now, sir. Con- 
rath ’s over the range, and Gash has been on 
a spree. He won’t be underground to-morrow, 
anyhow. How much time would you want ? ” 
“ I shall not go in until Conrath is back.’’ 
Hilgard had risen and stood before the fire, 
his head well lifted, his cigarette burning out 
in his fingers. 

“ I think you might ’s well take your chance, 
sir. He ’d do it with you, quick enough. It ’s 
no fool of a job you ’re undertaking Mr. Hil- 
gard.” 

“ I know it, West ; but, if I do it at all, I ’ve 
got to do it my own way — not Conrath’s way, 
or Gashwiler’s. I ’ll take my chances with 
Conrath on the ground.” 


40 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


IV. 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 

The “ Younger Sons ” celebrated their fort- 
nightly ball that evening in the dining-room 
of the Colonnade House ; the only suggestion 
of a Colonnade in connection with the house 
being the row of hitching-posts embedded in 
the dried mud of the street before it. 

The “ Younger Sons” was a select bachelor 
club, of the highest social aspirations. The 
sons were not all in their first youth. Some of 
them, it is to be feared, had known moments 
which were not those of aspiration; but, as 
sons go, they represented a tolerable filial 
average. There might have been something 
deprecatory in the modest title they had 
chosen ; at all events, they had found favor 
with the indulgent mothers of the camp, who 
accepted their invitations, and danced with 
them at the fortnightly ball, with the assumed 
approbation of the fathers. 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 41 

Hilgard could have been a “ Younger Son ” 
had he desired. He had complimentary tick- 
ets sent him for the dances, for which un- 
usual attention he was indebted to feminine, 
if not to maternal, influence. Men were at 
a discount on these occasions. They stood 
about in one another’s way, and trod on one 
another’s toes, against the wall, in a dreary, 
superfluous manner, which would have touched 
the sympathies of women not already over- 
burdened with masculine claimants for them. 
Hilgard, having been gratuitously chosen as 
an object of feminine sympathy, would doubt- 
less not have been sent to the wall; but 
heretofore lie had been an unresponsive and 
ungrateful object. He had given away his 
ball-tickets, and his dress-suit had remained 
folded in the bottom of his trunk. To-night, 
however, at half-past nine o’clock, a visitor 
who stepped in out of the fresh night-air 
found him sitting at his office-desk, in full 
evening costume, writing telegrams. 

It was a young lawyer of Hilgard’s ac- 
quaintance, who, after a careless greeting, 
regarding him critically from a comfortable 
vantage in front of the fire, remarked, — 


42 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ Rather more style than the occasion calls 
for, but you will do very well.” 

“ What occasion ? ” Hilgard inquired, fold- 
ing his telegrams. 

“A snug little supper at Archer’s. It’s 
rather late to ask you ; fact is, you were n’t 
included in the first deal. I asked Pitt to 
meet two Chicago men, just in, but he’s gone 
back on me at the last minute. Have you 
got something else on hand ?” 

“ I ’m going to the Prodigals’.” This was the 
painful perversion which the title of “Younger 
Sons ” had suffered, in unfraternal circles of 
the camp. “ I ’m getting rather sick of this 
crawling about underground. It ’s a comfort 
to stretch one’s legs, and get on a suit of 
clothes that isn’t decorated in relief with 
candle-grease.” 

“Come and stretch your legs under Arch- 
er’s hospitable board ; you won’t find any use 
for them at the Prodigals ! You can’t get a 
partner at this hour. Every card in the room 
is full.” 

“ I may not dance, but I’m going. Shall I 
send you a substitute ? ” 

“ If you can find me a good one ; but you ’d 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL . 43 


much better come yourself and eat some 
trout. The Chicago men will think from 
your get-up that Led-Horse stock is booming. 
I won’t tell them your ore is chiefly in the 
Shoshone bins.” 

As the legal counsel for the Led-Horse, 
intimately acquainted with its difficulties, Wil- 
kinson might have been pardoned this jest; 
but Hilgard flushed, as he replied, — 

“ My get-up was not furnished by the Led- 
Horse. There is not much of the boy left 
in me, but I’m going to give what there is 
a chance to-night. To-morrow — ” He re- 
pented, apparently, of having begun the sen- 
tence, and left it frankly unfinished, lifting his 
head and following with his eyes a ring of 
smoke that floated upward to the ceiling. 

“ To-morrow, you ’ll bid good-by to youth for- 
evermore, eh ? ” Wilkinson remarked, eying 
the young superintendent with some amuse- 
ment. “ You ’re expecting your gray hairs by 
the next stage ? ” 

“I’m expecting Conratli by the next stage. 
He is doing his best to promote my gray 
hairs.” 

“ How are you getting on with your testi- 
mony ? ” Wilkinson inquired. 


44 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ I ’m going to hunt up some to-morrow. 
Confound it all, it ’s the worst mess you ever 
saw. We may have to appeal to the unwritten 
law, after all ! ” 

“ That ’s what you ’re doing to-night, is n’t 
it, : — with the Prodigals’ ball for a tribunal ? 
Conratli, I' take it, isn’t the defendant in this 
case ! ” 

“ I had n’t thought of retaining you for 
counsel, Wilke,” Hilgard retorted. “ What 
time is your supper?” 

“Eleven, sharp. The Chicago men want 
to take in the town a little before they eat.” 

The two young men rode back to the camp 
together, and separated at the telegraph office. 
Hilgard did not enter the ball-room at once, 
but reconnoitred the scene from the office of 
the hotel, which communicated with it. Those 
who were not called to the feast were apt to 
congregate here, and pick up a few festal 
crumbs on the threshold. 

Hilgard felt roused without being particu- 
larly happy. He was not analyzing his mood, 
or his right to dedicate these few hours, on 
the eve of an arduous struggle, to his personal 
claims. He was simply satisfying himself as 


THE YOUNGER SONS' BALL. 45 

to whether his fair neighbor of the Shoshone 
persuasion was among the dancers. Failing 
to discover her, he stepped within the door- 
way for a better view, and found himself just 
behind a lady of his acquaintance, who was 
participating in the old-fashioned quadrille, 
then in progress. He was about to change 
his position when she saw him and began to 
talk to him in the pauses of her facile per- 
formance. 

She was a lively little matron, whose six 
months’ residence in the camp made her a 
veteran in its society. In spite of a childish 
face, and light, inconsequent manner, she 
looked no longer young. The subtle change 
was like a premature blight on a still full- 
veined flower. Her youthfully rounded cheek 
had a slightly crumpled texture, and her eyes, 
of the blue of childhood, were too widely, 
restlessly expanded. 

“ What has brought you here at last, you 
incorrigible hermit ? Or rather, who has 
brought you ? You have not deigned to come 
and dance with us married ladies, — but no 
sooner” — she was “ balancing” to one of 
the peripatetic partners in “ Gentlemen to the ' 


46 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


left ! ” and no ay she was whirled by the tips 
of her fingers, and finished the sentence, look- 
ing at Hilgard over her shoulder as she re- 
ceived the advances of the next — “ no sooner 
do we boast of a lovely young girl from the 
East, but you are here.” 

She whirled with Number Two, and con- 
tinued, with her eyes still on Hilgard, as she 
turned to Number Three, — 

“ But you are too late for anything but an 
introduction. It senses you quite right.” 

Her partner now seized her by both hands, 
and she was swept away in the final “ Prome- 
nade all ! ” 

Hilgard moved on among the ranks of 
black-coated wall-flowers, but encountered her 
again as the quadrille broke up. She slipped 
easily from her late partner’s arm to his, and 
addressed him with the utmost animation, 
which yet missed, somehow, the full accent 
of gayety. 

“ Why don’t you ask me to introduce 
you ? ” 

“To whom, if you please?” 

“Ah, what a fraud you are! I can see 
your eyes wandering about everywhere in 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 47 


search of her. You needn’t pretend that you 
don’t know who I mean ! ” 

“I suppose you are talking of your , lovely 
young girl from the East,— but how am I to 
tell her from the married ladies?” said Hil- 
gard, gazing around in mock bewilderment. 

“That’s very pretty of you, Mr. Hilgard. 
I see you are trying to make your peace with 
me. You know very well that you are talk- 
ing to her chaperone.” 

“Am I, indeed ?” Hilgard exclaimed, look- 
ing down into the upturned face of this guar- 
dian of inexperienced youth. “ What a fearful 
responsibility ! You look quite worn with it 
already ! Could I possibly be of any assist- 
ance to you in your duties ? ” 

“ Not the very least, I thank you ; I have 
been enthusiastically assisted already. She’s 
having a perfect ‘ovation.’ I must say she 
keeps her head very well for a girl who has 
been out so little.” 

“Do you suppose a young girl from the 
East would call this being 6 out ’ ? ” Hilgard 
asked, indifferently. He was quite sure that 
Mrs. Denny could not possibly be the chape- 
rone of the young girl he had come to see, 


48 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


and was very little moved by this picture of 
her as a successful candidate for the social 
honors of the camp. 

*“ Well, I don’t know what you would call 
being 4 out,’ if this is n’t ! A perfect wealth 
of partners, and so cosmopolitan! Why, a 
girl could dance with a man from every State 
in the Union ! ” 

Hilgard had never felt a greater distaste 
for the society of the little person who had 
so freely bestowed herself upon him, than 
to-night. He wondered why he did not es- 
cape from her. There was a fatality about 
women of this kind, he had observed, and 
vaguely questioned whether, as related to 
social brutality in man, they represented cause 
or effect. 

Mrs. Denny at this moment leaned from 
his arm with a smile of recognition to a young 
lady who passed them with the circling prom- 
enaders. Her complexion exhibited a rather 
weather-beaten fairness ; her dry, lifeless yel- 
low hair covered her forehead to her eye- 
brows; the sleeves of her black satin dress 
were cut very high on the shoulders, giving 
her the appearance of a perpetual shrug. 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 49 


Her throat and wrists were painfully small, 
and the hand which fluttered a passing greet- 
ing with her fan, had a meagre, attenuated 
expression in pathetic contrast to its gay 
gesture. 

“Is that your young girl from the East?” 
Hilgard asked, carelessly. 

“ Mercy, no ! Lou Palmer came from the 
East ten years ago ! Lou has had a beautiful 
time, but she begins to show it a little.” 

“ Is a ‘ beautiful time ’ so disastrous in its 
effects ? ” 

“Well, perhaps Lou has had rather too 
good a time,” said Mrs. Denny, with a reflec- 
tive air. 

“ Here is the cynosure ! ” Hilgard began, 
then stopped, lifting His head with a quick, 
characteristic movement, and nervously touch- 
ing his mustache. In the presence of the 
girl who stood before him, the light comment 
died on his lips. 

The little crowd of “Younger Sons,” which 
had indicated the force of some central at- 
traction, had parted suddenly, allowing the 
undoubted object of their homage to pass. 
She had apparently distinguished none of 
4 


50 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


them with her favor, and herfeyes had rather 
a dazed absence of expression, as she came 
toward Mrs. Denny. 

It was Conrath’s sister, — the fair Shoshone, 
in the white shimmer of her maiden bravery ; 
her freshness undimmed by the warm, dusty 
air of the ball, or its miscellaneous homage ! 

She glanced at Hilgard with doubtful rec- 
ognition. Then, perceiving the identity of 
this splendid youth with the clay-covered 
knight of the prospect-hole, she gave him a 
slight, cold greeting ; too cold for the blush 
that flamed, like a danger-signal, in her 
cheek. She proudly repudiated the traitor- 
ous color, however, and met his brilliant gaze 
a moment, quietly, as a lady may. 

“ I need not introduce you, I see,” observed 
the astute chaperone. “ You know Mr. Hil- 
gard, Miss Conrath. He has not honored our 
poor little dances until to-night. You must 
help to insure his coming again.” 

The next dance was forming on the floor. 
Hilgard, leaning against the whitewashed wall, 
reckless of his black coat, found himself for- 
getting all the incongruities of the meeting in 
the satisfaction it gave him. It was incon- 


THE YOUNGER SONS 9 BALL . 51 


ceivable that she should be there, in her flow- 
erlike brightness, among all these warped or 
stale humanities. Conrath’s admiration of 
Mrs. Denny was no secret in the camp, but 
that he should expect his young sister to 
share it seemed incredible. It was more 
probable that he had sacrificed his sister’s 
tastes to his own. 

However, there she was, and she would be 
there but a moment ! Already, her partner 
for the dance was industriously searching for 
her among the promenaders and the groups 
along the wall. Hilgard made use of his 
height and breadth of shoulder to defeat this 
search in an unobtrusive way. He was looking 
down on the circle of lamplight which rested 
on the top of the young girl’s head, crossed 
by a soft line of shadow where the maidenly 
parting sank out of sight. The drooping, 
rosy face, turned a little away from him, was 
in shadow, too, and the small ear, innocent 
of jewels, glowed as pink as a baby’s, warm 
from the pressure of the pillow. 

Her petulance of their first meeting, when 
she had lost her equanimity as well as her 
way, was quite gone; the shy alarm of her 


52 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


late greeting had also changed to a soft, sur- 
prised air of doubtful confidence, as if among 
the many alien faces around her she had 
found in his, so lately repelled, an unex- 
pected, bewildering sympathy. She looked 
at him again and again, with the brief, won- 
dering glance of a child lost in a crowd, 
whom some unknown friend has taken by the 
hand. 

Hilgard felt suddenly, deeply sobered. The 
excitement in his blood, which had been gath- 
ering with the thickening plot of his troubles, 
— which had driven him here to-night, — cli- 
maxed suddenly in her presence. It strung 
his rich, young voice to the lyric pitch, con- 
trolled by the effort not to meet too eagerly 
her hesitating preference. 

44 1 wonder if you like a triumph of this 
kind as much as most girls ? ” he asked ; and 
felt at once that the question was half an 
insult. 

44 Is this a triumph ? ” 

44 Oh, no, not this,” Hilgard went on des- 
perately, with too keen a perception of the 
briefness of the passing moment, 44 but what 
I have just deprived you of.” 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 53 

“Do yon imagine that I liked that?” look- 
ing at him reproachfully. 

“You cannot have anything better than 
the best the place affords. May I see your 
card a moment? I shall not even go through 
the form of asking you for a dance. I only 
want to satisfy myself that you really have 
the best.” He detached the pendent tassel 
from her bracelet, where it had caught. 
“ Yes,” he said, after a moment’s grave peru- 
sal, “ it is a proud record ! The flower of the 
camp have hastened to enroll themselves. 
I should have been too late an hour ago ! ” 

The inevitable partner was now very warm, 
indeed, on his quest, and it was no longer 
possible to frustrate his claims. 

Skirting along the wall, fanned by the cir- 
cling wings of the waltz, Hilgard joined an 
acquaintance seated in a quiet corner, near 
the door, — a well-preserved Younger Son, 
with a fresh-colored face and a humorous, 
uncertain, exaggerated expression, as if the 
facial muscles had become weakened in their 
action, like the keys of a long-used piano. 
His very respectable name of Thomas God- 
frey had been for many years ignored gener- 


54 


TEE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


ally by his friends, in favor of the gratuitous 
title of Doctor. When applied to him, it 
became, somehow, a familiar and affection- 
ate, rather than a dignified, sobriquet. 

“Doctor,” said Hilgard, “do you want to 
be an instrument of fate to-night ? ” 

“ Of whose fate, George ? I ’ve been an 
instrument of my own fate for fifty odd 
years ; — the result does n’t encourage me to 
meddle with anybody else’s.” 

“ You have n’t been passive enough. To- 
night there is a chance for you to be perfectly 
passive. You ’ve only to change places with me 
for a few hours, — or let me change with you.” 

“ Heaven forbid ! ” Godfrey interrupted. 
“Do you call that being passive ? ” 

“Wait till you hear me. It’s a better 
bargain than you think. I ’m too late for a 
dance, but you can have my supper at Arch- 
er’s for one of yours, if you’ll give me my 
choice of your partners.” 

The Doctor fixed Hilgard sternly with his 
heroi-comic gaze. “ I understand your little 
theory. Passivity for other folks, while you 
keep rustling! How many men have you 
made this offer to before you fell upon me ? ” 


THE YOUNGER SONS ’ BALL. 55 


“ Doctor, it is open only to you,” said Hil- 
gard, with a magnanimous air. 

“Perhaps you’re in collusion with some 
young lady in the room — I would n’t be sur- 
prised ! You ’ve been studying her card and 
picked me out, between you, as the most gul- 
lible man on her list. George, I’m amazed 
at your impudence ! ” The Doctor meditated 
mournfully upon this quality in Hilgard, who 
appeared to be a favorite with him. 

“ Upon my soul, it ’s no conspiracy. I 
happened to see your name on a young lady’s 
card, for a waltz — I know you can’t waltz — 
you must have been out of your mind when 
you asked her — at this altitude ! A good 
supper never comes amiss to a philosopher 
like you. I ’m considering your interests as 
well as my own in this proposition.” 

“ Thank you, boy. I ’m capable of looking 
after my own interests, as yet. Out of my 
mind ! At this altitude ! Pray, have you 
tried waltzing at this altitude ? ” 

“ I ’ve been waltzing up five hundred feet of 
pump-ladders, three days out of the week for 
the last six months, at this altitude.” 

“ That ’s not to the point. I want to know 


56 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


why I should n’t propose to waltz with a nice 
girl as well as a thin-waisted young peascod 
like yourself! Do you suppose a man loses 
his gallantry as he gains in girth? George, 
I wish you had more stability of character ! ” 

“ I ’ve got too much ; — that ’s the trouble 
with me. I ’m getting positively rigid. I 
came here to-night to limber myself up a 
little.” 

“Yes, you need limbering! Come — what 
is it you do want ? ” 

“ I want your waltz, Doctor, and you want 
my supper: you’re hankering for it this 
minute — I can see it in your eye ! ” 

“ What, the supper ? I can see it in your 
eye ! I don’t believe it.exists anywhere else.” 

“ Well — not at present, but it will exist at 
eleven o’clock. A three-handed spread with 
a dummy, — that is the way it stands now. 
Wilkinson asked me to take the place of 
dummy, in default of Pitt, delinquent.” 

“ What was the matter with Pitt ? What ’s 
the matter with you, — letting a good supper 
go begging round the camp ? There must be 
something wrong about that supper. Trout, 
did you say ? ” 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 57 


“ Oh, yes. There ’s nothing the matter 
with Wilkinson’s suppers, except the place 
where he has to give them ! ” 

“ Do you mean Archer’s ? ” 

“ I mean the place ! How can a man give 
anything in a place like this ?” 

“ It ’s a good enough place, if you know 
how to take- it. You ’re taking it too hard, 
my boy, — you’re looking thin. Go and eat 
your own supper ! You ought to be a valiant 
trencher-man at your age ! ” 

“I’ma better waltzer than trencher-man.” 
“ I don’t believe you, George. You may 
be to-night, perhaps. A man’s eye don’t 
need to be as bright as yours to enjoy a good 
supper. It should grow a little tender — 
soften a little, as his spirit grows compassion- 
ate. What ’s the matter with you, boy ? You 
look as I used to at your age, when I was get- 
ting into some awful scrape.” 

“ Then you ’d better keep me out of temp- 
tation and go to that supper in my place.” 

“Look here, George. It was a daring 
thing for me to do ! — a man who has n’t 
waltzed for seven years.” 

“ Seventeen, you mean, Doctor.” 


58 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


The Doctor placidly waved away the inter- 
ruption. 

. “ I ’ll tell you how I came to do it. Another 
man was just going to ask her, — a friend of 
Conrath’s. Con ought to be a little more cir- 
cumspect in his friendships if he ’s going to 
turn them all loose upon his sister.” 

“ Well ! ” Hilgard interrupted impatiently. 
“Well! I cut him out! Wasn’t it well 
done, at any risk, eh ? ” 

“ It was like you, Doctor.” 

“No, it wasn’t at all like me. It might 
have been like me at your age — but now, 
look how I ’in weakening ! I ’m rather inclined 
to take you up in that offer ! ” 

“ Of course you are ! It ’s a perfect arrange- 
ment: you defeat Conrath’s friend, and re- 
ward yourself with a good supper.” 

“ I ’m afraid you ’re too anxious about my 
reward ; however, there ’s a time for all things. 
You’re in the green tree and I ’m in the dry. 
When I was your age you would n’t have got 
such a bargain out of me, though ! ” 

“ Come, don’t moralize. Eleven, sharp, is 
your hour. It will take you five minutes to 
put on your overcoat, and ten to find your 
hat.” 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 59 


“ Well, good-night, boy. You ’re making a 
foolish bargain, but you’ll be twenty. years 
finding it out.” 

“ I shall call it a very good bargain if it 
wears as long as that.” 

“ You ’ll make my apologies to the young 
lady, George ? ” 

“ Trust me, Doctor ! I ’ll do it as well as 
you could — at my age.” 

It is to be feared that Thomas Godfrey’s 
apologies did not long dwell with those two 
fateful young souls, drifting so near to each 
other in the smooth involutions of the dance. 
Nor could the counter-charm of their crude and 
boisterous surroundings avail to reverse the 
spell, when its rhythmic circles were ended. 

The candles in tin sconces against the wall 
burned dim, with long winding-sheets cling- 
ing to them. The lamps smoked in the 
draughts from the windows, let down to 
renew the morbid air of the room. As the 
waltz died, with a piercing bravura of the 
violins, the stage, belated on the pass, drove 
noisily up to the hotel entrance. Half the 
people in the room rushed into the office, 
or crowded around the doors, to witness the 


60 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


disinterment of a file of bewildered passen- 
gers from the damp, close interior of the 
coach. 

The cold night-air, tainted with a strong 
smell of spirits, swept into the room with 
the current of excitement. There were bois- 
terous masculine greetings, loud laughter, 
and the tramping of feet on the uncarpeted 
staircase. 

Hilgard and Cecil Conrath were together 
in a corner of the half-deserted room. The 
violins were tuning, and the heated trumpet- 
ers, with their instruments under their arms, 
were leaning from their chairs on the plat- 
form to accept glasses of refreshment handed 
up to them from below. The young girl’s fair 
hair was slightly roughened, and its straying, 
shining filaments caught the light ; her gray 
eyes, when the shy lids revealed them, looked 
very dark, and the deepening color in her 
cheeks was clearly defined by the whiteness 
around her mouth. 

“ Are these from the aspens that grow in 
our gulch ? ” Hilgard asked, looking down at 
a cluster of pale yellow leaves that trembled 
at her belt. 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. 


61 


“ Yes,” she said, speaking with little breath- 
less pauses, as the tide of the dance-music 
ebbed in her breast. “ I like them better than 
the homesick-looking flowers the florists sell. 
Do you enjoy things that seem to find it so 
hard to live?” 

“ No, but I respect them,” Hilgard replied. 

“ But we don’t wear flowers out of respect 
for them ; and when there are so many painful 
things in the world, — to have to sympathize 
with flowers — ” 

She looked up for encouragement in her 
generalization. 

Hilgard’s encouragement took the form of 
a silent, unsmiling, downward look, and she 
referred to her aspens again, rather hastily. 

“ These little leaves keep shivering in their 
tough coats, but I believe it is a little affec- 
tation; they are really quite warm.” She 
shivered herself as she spoke. 

“ Is that a little affectation too ? ” Hilgard 
asked. 

“ No, it is only somebody walking over the 
place where my grave will be.” 

“ Suppose you were destined to a sailor’s 
grave, — in the bottom of the sea.” 


62 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


44 Then it might be a mermaid gliding past, 
you know, or a soft-footed seal.” Again she 
gave a little quick shudder. 

“ It might be ; but it is the wind, from that 
door. Let me fend it, so, with my shoulder.” 

She rested a moment against the wall in 
the shelter of the defensive shoulder. 

“ What is it the boys say when they play 
marbles? — 4 Fend ’ something,” she asked, with 
fitful gayety. 

“Fend dubs?” Hilgard suggested. 

“Is it that? I thought it was something 
prettier ! ” 

“ Marbles was not a euphonious game 
when I played it.” 

“ What does 4 fend dubs 9 mean ?” she per- 
sisted. 

44 I will teach you to play marbles, some- 
time, if you wish to learn,” Hilgard said, 
with a deep, impatient inspiration, 44 but I 
think you fend very well.” 

They both laughed and then were silent, 
seeming to listen to a mental echo of the 
laugh, and of their light words. The young 
girl blushed despairingly at her own child- 
ish allusion. It sounded rough and slangy 


THE YOUNGER SONS ’ BALL. 63 


to her, in the reproachful silence. The room 
filled again, suddenly, and the open door was 
shut. Hilgard resigned his protective attitude, 
and moved farther away from her. He felt 
impatient of the people crowding about them ; 
they were helping to confuse those brief mo- 
ments that lacked so little of perfection. It 
was like trying to follow the faint thread of 
a retreating melody through a maze of dis- 
tracting sounds. 

“ I will never permit another aspen to be 
cut on my side of the gulch. ,, It was all he 
could think of to say. “ They shall be sacred 
to you, from this evening.” 

“ 1 wish you would let me tell you,” she 
began with a desperate courage, “ how it was 
I came — how I happened to be at the shaft 
that morning.” 

“ There was no reason why you shouldn’t 
be there.” 

“ Yes, there was. A mine is private prop- 
erty. I know it was altogether queer. I saw 
that you thought it was, then.” 

“ I was perfectly delighted.” 

“ But I was not there to delight anybody. 
I simply thought I was on my brother’s 


64 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


ground. I was trying a new horse, and just 
wandering about anywhere.” 

“I’m afraid I was rather impertinent. I 
was surprised, I confess, but it was the most 
charming surprise a man ever had in his life. 
Forgive me ! What did I say to you that 
morning ? Was I very offensive?” 

“ You were not quite — not as you are to- 
night.” 

“ Not quite so offensive as I am to-night? ” 

“ You are making fun of me ! ” she said, 
with a grieved upward look. 

“ I could not possibly make fun of you ! 
But what can I say? You would not listen 
a moment to the things I want to say ! ” 

She had been nervously fingering the clus- 
ter of leaves at her waist, and now one floated 
from its broken stem softly to the floor. He 
stooped for it, and held it as if it were a mu- 
tual confidence. 

“ I wish you would forget that morn- 
ing,” she said. “Make believe it did not 
happen ! ” 

“ If you choose to forget it — especially my 
part of it — I must not complain. But I ’m 
afraid I cannot spare it, unless you will prom- 


THE YOUNGER SONS’ BALL. tiff 

ise me other mornings or evenings — better 
ones — to make up for it.” 

He was unconsciously proving a new range 
of looks, and tones which had been silent, 
heretofore, in the valiant procession of his 
years. It was the opening of the vox humana 
in his soul. The young girl listened to the 
44 prelude soft ” ; she sighed, moving her head 
back restlessly, and with one hand crushing 
the limp plaitings of lace closer around her 
throat. 

44 There will be no more mornings or even- 
ings,” she pld. 44 Everything I do here seems 
to be a mistake. This evening has been the 
worst mistake of all.” 

44 I know what you mean. We are none 
of us living our real lives. But there might 
be perfect things, here, — perfect rides and 
walks and talks, — if one were not always 
alone, or worse than alone.” 

44 But one always is ! ” 

44 But need one be ? We are neighbors — ” 

44 Yes,” she interrupted, 44 you and my 
brother are neighbors ! Oh, here is Mrs. 
Denny ! I wondered if we were never going 
home ! ” 


5 


£6 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


Mrs. Denny came toward them, between 
two gentlemen, laughing and shivering in a 
white cloak. Hilgard felt that the hovering 
joy of the moment had vanished. 

“ Did n’t you hear the stage drive up, Cecil ? 
Your brother is in at last. He says I may 
take you home with me to-night, and he will 
sleep at the hotel. He is completely done up — 
hasn’t even strength enough left to wonder 
how you got on without him to-night.” 

“ Where is he ? ” Miss Conrath asked. 
“ Cannot I go to him ? ” 

“ He is in bed by this time, m^ dear. He 
could scarcely stand on his feet.” 

“ Is he ill ? ” the girl inquired, anxiously. 

“ Of course he is n’t ill ! ” Mrs. Denny 
smiled meaningly at Hilgard behind the 
young girl’s back, and made a little waver- 
ing gesture back and forth with her small, 
wise forefinger. “ Can’t you imagine what 
twenty hours in that coach must be?” she 
added. 

“ I don’t need to imagine — I know ! ” Cecil 
said. 

“ Well, then! you cannot wonder he is fit 
for nothing but his bed ! ” 


THE YOUNGER SONS ’ BALL. 67 


At the ladies’ entrance — a recent addition 
to the Colonnade which could not be regarded 
as a triumph of privacy — Mr. Denny met 
them, and silently offered his arm to Miss 
Conrath, as if he had come for that purpose 
alone. He had spent the evening in a semi- 
detached state of attendance on his wife, 
varied by brief distractions of his own. Mrs. 
Denny gave him a quick, hard glance, when 
he first presented himself, perhaps to ascer- 
tain the nature of these distractions from their 
effects, but without altering her vivacity of 
manner. 


68 


TEE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


V. 


A PHILOSOPHER. OF THE CAMP. 

As Hilgard stepped into the street, his 
brown mare, Peggy, swung around from the 
hitching-post, and whinnied to him impatiently. 
He patted her neck and rubbed her soft nose, 
to console her for her disappointment, and 
then, crossing the street, ran up a dark flight 
of stairs to Godfrey’s lodging. 

He found the Doctor asleep in his arm-chair 
before an air-tight stove that showed a red glow 
at its draught. The ashes of his cold pipe were 
scattered over the ample bosom of his dressing- 
gown, and a book had slipped to the floor beside 
him. 

“ Eh ! what ? ” he exclaimed, querulously, 
arousing himself and feeling for a black silk 
cap that had dropped from the bald spot on 
the top of his reclining head. “ Is that you, 
George ? How did you get in ? ” 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP . 69 

“ I saw a light under your door and heard 
you snoring, so I came in ; the door was 
unlocked.’’ 

“ I snoring ! Nonsense ! I never unclose 
my lips when I sleep ! What you heard was 
the roaring of the draught. Open that door, 
it ’s very warm in here ! ” 

Godfrey leaned forward and closed the 
draught, then stretched himself back in his 
chair again, with a more benignant expression. 

“ Come, sit down, boy. Are n’t your long 
legs tired enough yet, but you must go prowl- 
ing about the room like that ? You ’ll give 
me a crick in my neck, trying to see you over 
my shoulder.” 

Hilgard sat down on a low chair which 
brought his chin very close to his knees ; he 
rested his crossed arms on them and his chin 
on his arms, fixing his black-brown eyes on 
a crack in the stove through which he could 
watch the subsiding gleam of the fire. 

“ I hope you will sleep as well after your 
dance as I did after my supper,” Godfrey re- 
marked. His tone carried with it a certain 
perception of some mood in his young com- 
panion which might call for less careless hand- 


70 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


ling than characterized their usual inter- 
course. 

“It strikes me it’s time you were in search 
of a bed somewhere. Did you come here to 
share mine ? ” 

“No, Doctor, — the fact is, you did me a 
tremendous favor to-night.” 

“ I rather suspected as much,” the Doctor 
assented, with a melancholy smile. He did 
not look at Hilgard, but kept his eyes on the 
stove. “ George, I hope my pride in you is n’t 
going to have a fall.” 

“ I hope not, Doctor,” said Hilgard, indiffer- 
ently ; “ but you had better put your pride in 
a safer place.” 

“ I ’ve gloried in your tough-heartedness 
where woman is concerned, more than I have 
in my own philosophy — eh ? ” added the 
Doctor, in reply to some inarticulate comment 
from Hilgard. 

“ With about as much reason, perhaps,” 
George repeated. 

“Don’t be flippant, boy. It’s a pity you 
can’t take a lesson in the old man’s philoso- 
phy, that you make light of at your own ex- 
pense. Learn to inhale the delicate bouquet 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 71 


and leave the wine alone, as I did at Archer’s 
to-night.” 

The Doctor performed a fastidious gesture of 
lifting a fragile glass to his superior sense, clos- 
ing his eyes in an ecstasy of appreciation. 

“ By the way,” he went on, as Hilgard 
watched him, a hot impatience struggling with 
his usual enjoyment of the old boy’s admoni- 
tions, “ Wilkinson thinks he knows a good 
wine ; perhaps he does ; but if he does, then 
I don’t ! There is n’t a wine in the place ! ” 

He appeared to have lost the thread of his 
anxieties regarding the perilous state of Hil- 
gard’s emotions ; but he presently returned 
to it, leaning back in his chair and closing his 
eyes, as having no one in view. 

“ All girls are pretty much alike when you 
get twenty or thirty years away from them — 
4 The brightest eyes that ever have shone,’ you 
know, — what the deuce is the rest of it ? 
I can’t remember any poetry that I ’ve read 
since I was ten years old. It ’s the essence 
a man wants in his life, not the individual 
flower ; however, at your age I took a more 
specific view of flowers ; I did n’t object to 
one in my button-hole now and then.” 


72 THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 

“ For Heaven’s sake, hold on, Doctor ! ” 
Hilgard interrupted. 

Godfrey put out a deprecating hand. 

“ Sit down, my boy, sit down. I understand 
you perfectly — no harm has been done so 
far. Your young legs ached for a dance with 
a pretty girl. Say a pretty girl — I don’t insist 
on your dancing with more than one girl 
at once — whom you may never see again, 
and my chastened spirit yearned for an ad- 
mirable supper. If I let my knowledge of 
young blood lead me into some foolish fore- 
bodings as to the future, why, that is n’t to 
say that you ’re bound to justify them.” 

Under the old boy’s commonplace manner- 
isms of speech, and the whimsical play of his 
features, now growing a little heavy in their 
mobility, there was an accent of genuine ten- 
derness. Hilgard, the boy of his recent fancy, 
understood him better than many of his oldest 
comrades, who had witnessed his slow dete- 
rioration, through twenty-six years of frontier 
life, and that series of postponed successes, 
roughly characterized by the world as fail- 
ures, which had robbed him gradually of his 
youthful prestige among them. It was said of 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 73 


the Doctor that he was lazy, unambitious, and 
given to levity. A pervading seediness had 
crept over his outward man. The moth of 
long isolation from gentle communications 
had corrupted his good manners, and the 
thief of discouragement had stolen his pride. 
He sometimes consorted with the halt and 
the maimed in reputation ; he did not always 
avoid the dark-colored sheep of the camp ; but 
he was never known to be the companion of 
its birds of prey. 

Hilgard was the only one of his acquaint- 
ance, perhaps, for whom he had any affection, 
who was not broken-winged, or weighted with 
some disability of character or fortune. His 
remnant of self-respect showed itself in his 
avoidance of the prosperous and flagrantly 
happy. He neither attempted to discount 
their successes, nor to share them ; but for 
Hilgard, on the threshold of the fight, in his 
unstained armor and unquenched ardor of 
life, he felt all the yearning of a woman, with 
the doubts and fears of a disappointed man. 
This feeling expressed itself chiefly in gibes 
and grimaces of speech, which passed current 
between them much more easily than senti- 
ments would have done. 


74 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ Your friend, Mrs. Denny,” Hilgard began 
after a silence, “in that delicate, arch little 
way of hers, intimated that Conratli had been 
drinking when he came in to-night. Is it a 
habit with him, do you know ?” 

“ No, hardly a habit, as yet ; a predilection, 
perhaps. It ’s a bad climate for predilections 
of that kind.” 

“Do you suppose he — his sister has ever 
seen him in that way ? ” 

“ Heaven forbid ! No, to do Con justice, he 
keeps himself out of the way when his little 
predilection has got the upper hand of him. 
He has 4 important business down town.’ 
Women have a great respect for that. I ’ve 
known Con’s affairs to be so absorbing as to 
keep him secluded for twenty-four hours at a 
time, — trouble with the smelters, and what 
not.” 

44 Miserable, brutal business ! ” Hilgard ex- 
claimed, rising to his feet with a gesture 
expressive of the general futility of things. 
44 Why is it that men who don’t know how 
to take decent care of a horse, always have 
some woman at their mercy ? ” 

44 Why, indeed, my boy, when chivalrous 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 75 

hearts like yours and mine have n’t so much 
as a rag of a favor to stick in our caps ! ” 

“ What infernal selfishness to bring a girl 
like that out here, anyhow ! ” Hilgard went on, 
without noticing the reckless inconsistency of 
the Doctor’s present attitude with regard to 
feminine favors. 

“ Well, you and I should be the last to com- 
plain of that. The influence of a nice girl in 
a place like this, provided, mind you,” said 
the Doctor, endeavoring to recover himself, 
“ that no attempt is made to sequestrate the 
same — ” 

“ And look at the friends he picks out for 
her ! ” Hilgard interrupted passionately. “ A 
rowdy little woman with a miscellaneous list 
of acquaintances — ” 

“ Steady, my boy ! If you mean Mrs. 
Denny, — I’m one of Mrs. Denny’s acquaint- 
ances, myself ! I knew her at Central before 
she was married. She was a bright-faced little 
thing just out of school. Family came from 
Tennessee — broken up by the war. Just 
fancy a girl beginning the study of human 
nature in a mining camp — and her own na- 
ture in the bargain. She began with Denny. 


76 THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 

Are you listening to me, George ? I suppose 
the only way for a woman really to know a 
man is for her to marry him. If that ’s true, 
in the course of an average life, with the 
greatest perseverance, she could n’t get very 
far in the noblest study of mankind, could 
she ? Well, Mrs. Denny knows Denny pretty 
thoroughly, I suspect, by this time ; and I 
dare say she ’s been surprised at a good many 
things she’s found out in herself. Found 
herself doing and saying and thinking a good 
many things she never would have believed 
herself capable of when she was a young girl. 
She’s a weak little vessel — the Lord knows 
what she was fashioned for ; but it was n’t 
for Denny — that I ’ll take my oath to. The 
Lord never fashioned any woman for men like 
Denny. She used to be very musical in a 
chirrupy kind of way, but she doesn’t sing 
any more — says she has n’t any instrument. 
If there ’s any music in that household, she ’s 
the instrument and Denny’s the player. It’s 
a wonder she isn’t more out of tune. It 
makes a ghastly kind of music in a family 
when both have ceased to love, and one 
knows how to torture.” 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 77 

“ Doctor,” said Hilgard, 44 I wish you 
would n’t ! ” 

44 Well, I won’t — but you mustn’t, either ! 
Let her alone, poor little devil! She isn’t 
the kind that rebels and sets up her own 
individuality. 1 don’t suppose she ever had 
much to set up. She just wobbles along, 
leaning a little too far one way and then a 
little too far the other, and Denny prods her 
up to her place now and then.” 

44 What is the use of talking about it ? ” 

44 Well, I won’t; only look here — why 
should you grudge her the company of a sweet 
young girl ? If she can stand the contact, 
I should think the young girl might. Not 
that I ’d pick her out myself to matronize a 
girl of mine ; but Conrath likes a lively little 
duenna, you see. By the way, George, — Con- 
rath does n’t seem to love you much. What ’s 
the reason ? ” 

Hilgard looked uncomfortable. 

44 The reasons are underground — most of 
them.” 

44 Some scrape about your end lines, I 
hear — ” 

44 Yes” 


78 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


« Well, that is n’t all of it, is it ? ” 

“ Is n’t that enough ? ” 

“No, it isn’t, in a camp like this. I’ve 
known men to pocket each other’s ore, and 
fight it out, and be on joking terms with each 
other, like’s not, half the time. You’re the 
one to feel ugly, it strikes me.” 

“Well, I do feel ugly.” 

“ You don’t feel as ugly as Con does, not 
by half. Come, I want to know what the 
trouble is ! ” 

Hilgard turned red. 

“ Hang it all ! ” he said. “ It ’s that little 
fool of a woman you are trying to make me 
sorry for ! It began coming over the range. 
We made the trip from Fairplay together, 
Conrath and Mrs. D. and myself, and a lot 
more, shut up in that musty coach.” 

“ You and Con made Mrs. Denny’s ac- 
quaintance together, eh? Well, that was an 
unlucky conjunction.” 

“Oh, he knew her before, and I didn’t 
want to know her — ” 

“Ah!” said the Doctor. “I see! Well, 
it ’s a pity. Mrs. Denny is a little fool, but 
not an inch of anything more.” 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 79 


“ I don’t care what she is, if she will only 
keep out of my way.” 

“You mustn’t take up too much room 
with that way of yours, my boy. It ’s a small 
world. A fellow with as broad shoulders as 
you’ve got, can’t go squaring them through 
it. We’ve got to turn out for the blind, and 
the lame, and the vicious. For your own 
sake, you ’d better turn out for Conrath. He 
won’t bear crowding. Give him plenty of 
room. I need n’t tell you you ’d better let 
his lady friends alone.” 

“ I should think not, if you mean Mrs. 
Denny,” Hilgard said, fiercely ; “ Conrath’s 
lady friends are not likely to be mine.” 

“ Well, his lady relatives, then. The sister 
is very nice and very pretty, but she belongs 
to the Shoshone crowd. You’ll find it enough 
to be mixed up with them in business, with- 
out any sentimental complication.” 

Hilgard rose to his feet and straightened 
himself while he buttoned his overcoat, look- 
ing down at Godfrey with an expression of 
intense annoyance. 

“ Are you speaking of Miss Conrath ? ” 

“ Surely. Has Conrath more than one 
sister in the camp ? ” 


80 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“When you allude to a young lady as 
belonging to a ‘ crowd,’ it is lucky for you, 
old boy, that it ’s not my sister you are talk- 
ing about.” 

“ I wish slie were your sister. I ’m going up 
to the Shoshone to-morrow,” Godfrey added 
presently. “ I want to look at that girl again. 
I can easily have some business with Conrath. 
Besides, I owe her an apology in person for 
the waltz last night.” 

“You’d much better keep away. You’ll 
go up there with a bee in your bonnet, and 
make yourself ridiculous. She has forgotten 
which of us she waltzed with, by this time.” 

Hilgard had got as far as the door, but 
stopped and began walking up and down the 
shadowy part of the room while he expostu- 
lated with the Doctor. 

“ If you ’ll promise to keep away, I -will,” 
the latter called to him from the depths of his 
chair. “You are much safer and in better 
company with a ridiculous old fellow with a 
bee in his bonnet, than with any of that 
crowd. I say it again, whoever it offends ! ” 

“ Doctor, you are as bad as a dime novel. 
I could laugh, if you didn’t make me so 


A PHILOSOPHER OF THE CAMP. 81 


mad, at the wild absurdity and the cheek of 
you!” 4 

“Well, ‘some will laugh while others 
weep/” said Godfrey, rubbing the black silk 
cap about, sleepily, on the top of his head. 
“Have you any idea how late it is? The 
respectable part of the camp has been in bed 
these two hours ! ” 

Hilgard took no notice of this hint. 

“ Conrath can’t be all rascal,” he said, after 
a silence. “ There must be a decent side to 
him if one could only get at it. How is that, 
Doctor, do you know ? ” 

“ I don’t think he is a many-sided youth,” 
Godfrey answered. “ I ’ve seen only two sides 
of him, — Conrath when he has been drinking 
and Conrath when he hasn’t. I haven’t 
found either very attractive. He has never 
done anything yet, but I’m afraid when he 
cuts his wisdom teeth, he’ll cut them in 
iniquity.” 

Hilgard continued his perambulations in 
silence. A smouldering stick fell in the stove, 
and the flames started up again with a dull 
roar. 

“Con,” said the Doctor — “no, — George, 
6 


82 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


— don’t you get too fraternally anxious about 
Conrath’s sister.” The Doctor’s thoughts were 
evidently wandering. “ Mrs. Denny’s — little 
discrepancies — quite on the surface. Even 

— guileless observer like myself can perceive 
them.” The words came lingeringly, with 
somnolent pauses. “ I ’m sorry — Con is n’t 
better — boy — for her sake — Cecil’s sake — 
and yours.” 

The black silk cap fell' off, as the wearer’s 
head, sagging from side to side, dropped back 
against his chair ; his hand, with the pipeful 
of cold ashes, sank lower and lower, and 
rested on its broad arm. Hilgard picked up 
the cap, and pressed it quietly on the defence- 
less crown, which, as the Doctor said, had 
“ got above timber-line.” 

“ G-’ bless you, George. Go to bed, foolish 
boy ! ” the sleeper murmured. 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


83 


VI. 

BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 

The Doctor’s apprehensions with regard to 
Hilgard survived the night and clouded his 
enjoyment of a late breakfast, cooked by him- 
self. He tried in vain to recall the face of the 
partner whom he had resigned, in a weak 
moment, to his favorite. He could only re- 
member that she was young, with a sweet 
voice and fair, indefinite coloring. Surely 
there had been nothing about her that need 
have been irresistible, even to four-and-twenty. 
Reflecting, however, upon the position, rela- 
tively, of the two mines, and the dangers of 
propinquity and isolation combined, the Doc- 
tor resolved that he would take his threatened 
ride up to the Shoshone in the afternoon, and 
satisfy himself as to the potency of Miss Con- 
rath’s charms and the consequent extent of 
Hilgard’ s peril. 


84 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


He inquired for Conrath, and was not sur- 
prised to find that he was not at the mine. 
The Doctor had assured himself of that fact 
before leaving the camp. Miss Conrath was 
at home, however ; on his asking to see her, 
the maid showed him into the long, bright 
room, with windows at both ends which served 
for all the social uses of the managerial estab- 
lishment. The young lady looked up from 
her low seat by the hearth, in evident surprise, 
at his entrance. 

She appeared to have been sitting a long 
time by the fire, for one cheek was quite hot 
and red, and her lips showed a dry, vivid 
brightness. She gave him a somewhat per- 
functory welcome, as if, as a matter of course, 
he had come to see some one else. 

He began to realize, with some uneasiness, 
that Conrath’ s sister was not quite such a 
child as he had thought her to be. But 
the Doctor had not the fear of woman, how- 
ever young and fair, before his eyes. He re- 
ferred at once to the ball, and to the waltz, 
with the unblushing protestation that his 
unavoidable rudeness had cost him his night’s 
rest. 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


85 


Miss Conrath was not pleased with her 
visitor, but she was willing to bear with him 
for civility’s sake. She was curious about 
him, too. 

She was looking a little heavy-eyed and 
feverish after the ball. She had slept ill at 
Mrs. Denny’s, and had not been able to com- 
pose herself to rest since her early return to 
the mine. But as the Doctor looked at her 
he was more and more disgusted with his 
own fatuity of the night before. 

He almost groaned as he studied her, and 
saw how more than pretty, how adorable, she 
was ! 

She sat somewhat listlessly engaged with a 
mass of soft white knitting she had unfolded 
from a silk handkerchief which she spread 
across her lap, while the Doctor discussed the 
chances of the railroad getting through to 
the camp before winter, and indulged in the 
usual revilings of the climate. 

“ Did you ever have the asthma, Miss Con- 
rath?” he asked, pursuing this theme with 
variations. 

“ I don’t remember that I ever did,” Cecil 
laughed. She was able, as yet, to regard 


86 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


illness, connected with herself, as a kind of 
joke. 

“ Well, I dare say you never did. But then, 
you know, even babies have been known to 
have it. Well, this is the most marvellous 
climate for asthmatics, in fact, for any kind 
of chronic complaint. But I ’ve observed these 
stimulating climates that stir old blood out of 
its torpor are the very — are a — all wrong 
for healthy youngsters. Young blood don’t 
require a light atmosphere any more than it 
requires a whiskey-and-soda — if you will ex- 
cuse me — every morning before breakfast. I 
don’t know, upon my soul, how else to account 
for the way all the young fellows go to the 
deuce out here.” 

Cecil looked up at her visitor in great sur- 
prise. She thought he might possibly be 
approaching the subject of a hospital or free 
reading-room, or course of lectures for young 
men, with a view to asking for contributions ; 
but he did not look like an agent for a benevo- 
lent enterprise. She was at a loss to under- 
stand the turn he had given to the conversa- 
tion. 

The Doctor certainly was taking a most 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


87 


extreme view of liis duty in this situation, 
which he had found so much worse than could 
have been expected. There was no doubt as 
to Hilgard’s symptoms. They had been of a 
nature calculated to shake far more than the 
Doctor’s boasted faith in his tough-hearted- 
ness. He had no objection to the young lady. 
A perfect lamb, he said to himself, and yet 
with a spirit of her own in those steady gray 
eyes, under the wide low arch of the soft eye- 
brows. But she was allied to a masculine 
element in the camp, the nature of which the 
Doctor understood better than Hilgard. It 
was evident that his warnings had been thrown 
away on that headstrong youth. He must see 
what could be done with the fair Shoshone. 
There was no way left but to traduce Hilgard — 
blacken his character — deal with him remorse- 
lessly, and make her afraid of him. George 
might think the treatment of his symptoms 
a little rigorous, but he would live to be thank- 
ful for it. The Doctor would shrink from 
nothing, where the safety of his “boy” was 
concerned. 

“He can talk about his dime novels,” he 
soliloquized gloomily, “ but the state of things 


88 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


here is not much better. It’s mediaeval, — 
that ’s what it is ! ” 

“ There ’s that young Hilgard,” he began 
violently. As if the word had been a blow, 
the color answered in the young girl’s cheek. 
She had expected that name some time in the 
course of the conversation, but was not pre- 
pared for it in this connection. “ George 
Hilgard was a perfect specimen of young 
manhood when he first came from the East ; 
he was like Saul among his brethren.” 

The unhappy blush deepened until it had 
quite obliterated the fire-glow. 

“ I don’t know what can have got into that 
boy, unless it ’s the altitude ! He needs more 
atmospheric pressure — the more pounds to 
the square inch the better for a chap like that. 
I ’ve been foolish enough to let in a sneaking 
kind of a fancy for that young limb, but, upon 
my soul, if he ’s got any friends in the East, 
they ’d better send for him I They ’d better 
get him out of this camp ! ” 

The young girl looked steadily at her work 
without speaking, while a paleness about her 
lips spread slowly backward over her cheeks. 

“ I ’m sure I don’t know what time he got 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


89 


to bed last night! He came tramping up 
my stairs long after midnight to talk over his 
troubles with me. I knew he was getting into 
some scrape or other ! That boy has got to 
get out of the camp ! ” 

The Doctor concluded, from the victim’s 
expression, that he had gone far enough. He 
had not, indeed, intended to go quite so far, 
but the effort his words had cost him had 
given them an impetus which surprised him- 
self. Miss Conrath’s head was bent very low 
over her knitting, and the white wool slid over 
her fingers with a fitful, uncertain movement. 
He now proceeded calmly to give his remarks 
a more general tendency. 

“That’s a very pretty thing you’re work- 
ing on, — looks as white and soft as a fresh 
snowfall. Hope it will keep white longer 
than the snow does that falls in this dusty 
camp.” 

With her needle between her tremulous 
fingers, Cecil held out the corners of the 
handkerchief. 

u I keep it folded in this,” she said. 

“ Ah, yes,” the Doctor murmured abstract- 
edly, “ that ’s a good way, too ! Ridiculous 


90 


TIIE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


idea for an old fellow like me to be dwelling 
on ; but if I bad a young sister or daughter 
in this camp, I dare say I should be inclined 
to keep her as you keep your white wools — 
folded away from the dust.” 

He paused a moment, awaiting some com- 
ment from Miss Conrath. But none came ; 
she took a long breath and rested her arms 
on her lap, looking down into the fire. The 
Doctor derived great satisfaction from her 
attitude, and the long sigh, as of one who 
rests a moment after pain. 

She began to wince — poor little thing! 
He would give one more turn to the screw 
and then let her breathe again. It was abso- 
lutely necessary that she and Hilgard should 
not be running across each other at balls, 
every fortnight or so. George would easily 
find means to re-establish himself in her eyes, 
if he had the chance. The Doctor would do 
what a devoted friend might, to deprive him 
of that chance. 

“ Now, that ball of the ‘ Younger Sons,’ ” he 
went on ; “ they claim to be very exclusive, 
poor fellows ! I ’m one of them myself, so far 
as the name goes, but I don’t pride myself on 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


91 


it. A younger son is no better than an older 
one, — sometimes not half so good. What did 
you think of the ball, Miss Conrath ? Did it 
strike you as being very exclusive ? ” 

Miss Conrath lifted her eyes a moment, but 
without looking at the Doctor. 

“ I do not think those who went to the ball 
are the ones to criticise it,” she said. 

“ Surely not,” the Doctor cordially assented ; 
“ but, on the other hand, those who did not 
go are hardly the ones ! You and I have 
been, Miss Conrath; and, if I may judge 
by your expression, rather than your words, 
you find yourself not quite acclimated to 
the pitch of gayety required to enjoy a camp 
ball.” 

“ My brother wa& not there, as I expected,” 
Cecil protested. 

“Ah, yes, of course that makes a differ- 
ence ; but it makes more difference here than 
it would anywhere else. Here, there is no 
classification. You have to pick your way 
among all the people who are crowding you, 
elbow to elbow. What is a young girl to do ? 
You are no judge of character, Miss Conrath. 
I hope you are not, at your age. You are per- 


92 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


fectly defenceless here, the moment you get 
outside your door. So is any young girl.” 

Miss Conrath rose suddenly, as if her en- 
durance had reached a limit. 

“ It is true,” she said, “ I must be defence- 
less, when strangers give themselves the right 
to take my brother’s place — and in his own 
house.” 

The Doctor rose, too, smiling at her with 
invincible composure. He was well satisfied 
with the effect of his desperate measures. To 
make all sure for the future he would not 
spare the final blow. 

“ Neither Hilgard nor I dared to be perfectly 
frank with ' you about that exchange of part- 
ners last night. Shall I make a clean breast 
of it and tell you the facts ? ” he asked. 

Cecil faced him, her soft eyes expanded 
with a pained brightness. 

“ I will hear nothing more ; you have been 
too frank already,” she exclaimed, indignantly. 
“ Please to have some regard for me, if you 
have none for your friend. I have heard 
things to Mr. Hilgard’s discredit from others 
who did not profess to like him, but it is his 
friend who has no mercy on his character, 
and no respect for his confidence.” 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


93 


The Doctor was instantly and mightily 
roused at the thought of these “ others,” less 
disinterested detractors, at work upon Hil- 
gard’s character. His was the only hand that 
could be trusted to administer the blacken- 
ing touches, and even his began to tremble 
remorsefully at the picture he had faintly 
sketched of his boy, a prey to the cheap 
temptations of the camp. He sat down again, 
bent on investigating this unexpected aid 
which had anticipated him in the work of 
defamation. 

“I should like to know,” he burst forth, 
“ who has been warning you against George 
Hilgard ! Perhaps your brother has been 
enlarging on him for your benefit. You 
needn’t pay the least attention to that sort of 
thing. Your brother and Hilgard are engaged 
just now in a discussion of their boundary 
lines. Half the mines in the camp are doing 
the same thing; their opinion of each other 
is likely to be more picturesque than edify- 
ing. What has your brother got to say about 
Hilgard?” 

“ I have not mentioned my brother’s name ! ” 

“Of course you haven’t. You appear to 


94 


THE LED- HORSE CLAIM. 


have more sense than most girls ; but you 
may take my word for it, Miss Conrath, that 
when you hear anything to the discredit of 
George Hilgard, it ’s invented by the person 
who brings it to you, I don’t care who he 
is ! Of course, your brother has got to keep 
Hilgard at a distance. The chief of the 
Led-Horse can’t be chass&ng back and forth 
across the gulch with the sister of the Sho- 
shone ! You can’t be putting a man’s ore in 
your pocket with one hand and asking him to 
dinner with the other.” 

“ Mr. Godfrey ! ” 

“ Oh, I know I ’m in your brother’s house. 
I’m only expressing the general sentiment 
down in the camp. I don’t know anything 
about their squabbles ! I only know that 
George Hilgard ’s the finest young fellow in 
this camp. He’d be one of the ten who 
would save the city, if we could find the other 
nine ! ” 

“ I don’t know whom you are defending him 
from. You yourself have said the worst 
things,” Cecil protested. 

“ What have I said ? I said he was in 
trouble. So he is ! So he is ! Or if he is n’t, 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


95 


he ’s in a fair way for it. It ’s' easy enough 
to see the beginning,” — he looked mena- 
cingly at the bewildered girl, — “ but there 
is no telling where it will end ! I ’ve done 
what I could. There ’s not a young fellow 
living for whom I’d have done what I’ve 
done for him to-day ! But I give it up ! ” 
The Doctor spread out both his palms with 
a hopeless gesture. 

Cecil began to feel a little afraid of her 
eccentric visitor, who did not seem to be out 
of his mind, nor yet altogether in it. She 
was troubled by a suspicion that he must 
have some motive for his grotesque outburst 
of confidence with regard to Hilgard. She 
could hardly take it as a wanton imperti- 
nence toward herself. 

“ I must ask you to excuse me from any 
more discussion of your friend. What he is 
or is not, cannot concern me. My brother 
will be at home soon, I think, if you like to 
wait for him.” 

She felt that her discourtesy had been well 
deserved, and, without further apology, she 
left the room. 

The Doctor remained sitting for some time 


96 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


alone ; he looked down at the prints of his 
dusty feet on the carpet, then at the heap of 
white knitting the girl had dropped. “ Well ! 
if women aren’t the very — ” 

At that moment the maid entered with a 
jingling tray of glass and silver, which she 
proceeded to arrange on the sideboard at the 
farther end of the room. The Doctor took 
out a card and scribbled a few words on it. 

“Will you give this to Miss Conrath ?” he 
said, handing it to the maid. The words 
were : — 

“ Forgive me if I have made you uncom- 
fortable. You need not remember anything 
I have said. Any inconsistencies you may 
have noticed in my remarks, I will commend 
to your charity for an old fellow who was 
kept up much too late the night before ! ” 
The Doctor was obliged to confess to him- 
self, as he rode back to the camp, that the 
four dollars he had spent that afternoon for 
horse-hire were entirely thrown away, so far 
as it was ever likely to benefit Hilgard. 

“ It all comes of the missionary spirit,” he 
grumbled to himself. “ A man never goes 
out with that spirit on him, that lie is n’t sure 


BOUNDARY MON U MEN TS. 


97 


to poke himself into some place where he ’s 
no business to be.” 

After sunset of the same day, Cecil Con- 
rath was walking back and forth on the 
hillside above the gulch, following an unfre- 
quented trail, screened by the quaking aspens 
from view on the side of the Led-Horse, and 
sheltered from the winds by the crest of the 
hill. The miners, observing that the young 
girl often walked here alone, had, with tacit 
courtesy, left this trail to her exclusive use. 

To-day she ventured farther than usual 
into the gulch, attracted by the flutter of a 
red flag among the parting leafage. It was 
planted in the centre of a clump of young 
trees, aspens of larger growth, and slender, 
branchless pines growing in the bottom of 
the gulch. The ominous signal, awaiting 
some unknown issue in this lonely spot on 
the debatable ground between the two mines, 
gave Cecil a curious shock of apprehension. 
The air was full of rumors of incipient 
trouble. The situation had never been ex- 
plained to her ; she knew that Hilgard was 
the accuser and her brother the defendant, 
7 


98 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


and that the affairs of the accuser were at a 
low ebb, while those of the defendant pros- 
pered amain ; more than this, she had only 
her forebodings, which had not been allayed 
by the tone her brother invariably used in 
speaking of his neighbor. 

Venturing nearer, she saw that the trees 
which stood around the signal flag were each 
defaced by the hacking of a large piece of 
bark from the trunk, and bore an inscription 
deeply cut in the white, exposed wood. The 
leafy covert, where the shadows, stealing 
down between the hills, made an early dusk, 
might well have served for a try sting-place ; 
but these were no amorous records which the 
young girl deciphered, as she went from tree . 
to tree, tracing the rude intaglio; unless, 
indeed, the lovers had concealed their mutual 
vows under an arithmetical formula. 

The red flag drooped in the failing breeze. 
Cecil now observed that it was planted be- 
tween two narrow, flat stones, partly driven 
into the ground, side by side ; the stones bore 
the same mysterious formulae with which the 
tree-trunks were branded. 

What had happened in this secluded spot, 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


99 


with these young trees standing about like 
mute witnesses, each bearing its scar for a 
token ; and what coming event was this red 
signal beckoning on ? 

She heard a man’s footsteps striding rap- 
idly down the trail behind her; she waited 
under the blazed trees until they should pass. 
They did not pass, but came near and paused, 
and Hilgard’s voice, low, and a little disturbed 
by rapid heart-beats, gave her “ Good evening.” 

“ Is it very strange for me to be here ? ” 
she asked, instinctively summoning him to 
her own defence. “ I never come down into 
the gulch ; but I saw this flag from the hill. 
I could not think what it meant ! ” 

His presence had changed her unaccount- 
able panic into a definable dread lest, when 
she looked in his face, she should see there 
records, unobserved before, of that deteriora- 
tion, or capacity for it, which Mr. Godfrey had 
ruthlessly depicted and then recklessly denied. 
She lifted her eyes doubtfully to his. 

As if he felt the subtle question in them, 
his own met hers with their manly answer. 
It was enough, and more than enough. She 
had not asked for all the assurances that she 
read in his eyes. 


100 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


44 It is altogether so very strange here,” she 
said, looking about restively at the encircling 
trees. 

44 Has anything frightened you, or troubled 
you ? ” 

44 Oh, no — it is only the place. Why are 
the trees all cut and marked, and these little 
stones ? What has happened here ? Do you 
know ? ” 

Hilgard could not forbear a smile. 

44 Only a very little thing happened here a 
year and a half ago. The southwest corner 
of the Led-Horse and the southeast corner of 
the Shoshone were located here. The end 
lines of the two claims are identical. These 
stones are the corner monuments, and the num- 
ber of the corner and of the official survey 
are marked on them and on the trees. Did 
it seem so very mysterious to you?” 

44 1 thought these stones marked the grave 
of some one buried here.” 

44 The graves of a good many fortunes are 
marked by such stones as these. But they 
do not usually mean anything more tragic.” 

44 And what does this flag mean ? ” 

44 It has been used for a survey that was 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


101 


made to-day along the line. The flag was 
placed here for what is called a 4 back-sight,’ 
to insure keeping the line ahead straight.” 

“ Then it does not mean danger of any 
kind ? ” 

“ I hope not, I am sure,” Hilgard replied. 
“Are you a little sensitive, perhaps, about 
danger ? ” he suggested, smiling. 

“ When one is alone a good deal one is apt 
to get morbid,” she admitted. 

He looked at her wistfully, thinking of his 
own loneliness, which he had not been con- 
scious of until she became his neighbor. 

“ And the direction one’s morbidness takes, 
depends on temperament, I suppose. My 
morbidness takes the direction of various 
kinds of happiness I might have, but never 
expect to,” he said. 

“ I should think you might be quite happy 
in your little kingdom over there.” Her clear 
accents struck with thrilling sweetness on the 
stillness. 

“ You will have a kingdom of your own 
some day. I hope you will like it better than 
I do mine.” 

She turned her cheek, toward him, with a 


102 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


movement of attention, but without looking at 
him. 

“Will you tell me if I am on our side of the 
‘ line ’ ? ” she asked. 

“ The Shoshone side, do you mean ? ” 

“ Yes, of course.” 

He came a few steps nearer to her. “ Now 
we are both on the Shoshone side ; you will 
let me stay on your side a moment, will you 
not ? ” 

“ But is that surveyor looking at the flag 
now ? ” she exclaimed, with a sudden accent 
of alarm at the thought of a mathematical 
instrument which might be of the nature of a 
telescope brought to bear on her under the 
present circumstances. 

Hilgard reassured her by pulling up the 
“back-sight” and tossing it on the ground. 
The survey had been finished an hour ago, 
he explained ; he had happened to remember 
the flag in passing, and had come to take it 
away. 

She turned now toward the upward trail ; 
but Hilgard, walking at her side, besought 
her to give him a few moments more. 

“Am I never to see you,” he asked, — . 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


103 


“as other people see you, — as I might see 
you anywhere but here ? Why may I not 
walk with you now, up the hill to your 
brother’s house ? There is no personal feel- 
ing on my part, in this unpleasant business 
between the mines. You have heard of it, 
of course, but it need be only a business 
disagreement. Your brother and I should 
not be enemies ! ’ ’ 

She had stopped as he overtook her, and 
now walked back irresolutely toward the 
group of trees. 

“ I hope you are not enemies ! ” she said. 
“ It is so causeless ! So — so — incredible ! 
I do not understand what it is! No one 
has explained it to me. Could you tell 
me?” 

“ No,” said Hilgard, dejectedly ; “ I am not 
the one to tell you. You must have what 
faith you can in — both of us — until the 
truth comes out. But it is very hard to feel 
that* your strongest bias must always be 
against me. If you would give me but the 
merest chance that any acquaintance might 
have, to put myself in some other light than 
the one I am doomed to in your eyes. You 


104 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM, 


will always think of me as a determined 
partisan of the wrong side.” 

“If my brother brings you to the house, 
I will think of you only as our guest.” 

“Is that likely to happen, do you think?” 
he asked bitterly. 

“ No,” she said, “ it is not at all likely, but 
there is no other way.” She stood with her 
shoulder against a slender pine and looked 
down at the scar in its side, touching it with 
remorseful fingers. “ I don’t know why it 
should be so, but I have known from the first 
that there could be no softening of this — 
of the bitterness between you and my brother 
by any effort of mine. It is a woman’s place 
always to make peace, but it has been useless 
to try.” 

“ But I declare to you that there is no 
bitterness on my part.” 

“ Wherever it lies, it is there ! ” she said. 
“We cannot be friends — or even acquaint- 
ances.” # 

“ But you cannot make me your enemy ! 
The bitterness shall not include us ! What a 
strange fate it is that I should be on any 
\snje that is not your side ! ” 


BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. 


105 


She was already moving away, but, at his 
words, she looked back without speaking. 
In the gathering dusk he could not read 
the expression of her eyes, but the mute ac- 
tion, trustful yet forbidding, racked his self- 
control. 


106 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


VII. 

THE BARRICADE. 

Mrs. Denny had won from Conrath a reluc- 
tant promise that he would take her down 
the main shaft of the Shoshone, and through 
its subterranean workings. He had postponed 
the fulfilment of this promise until it had 
become a subject for rather keen bantering 
between these lively comrades. On the second 
day after the ball, Conrath surprised Mrs. 
Denny by asking her if she was ready to go 
down in the mine that afternoon. 

He had called at her house in the morn- 
ing, and the plan had been discussed between 
them as he sat on his horse, and she leaned 
on the pine-pole railing of the porch, wrapped 
in one of the fluffy white shawls in which she 
w'as fond of muffling her small, chilly form. 
Conrath was looking pale and somewhat de- 
moralized after his stage-ride and its contin- 
gencies, the nature of which Mrs. Denny had 


THE BARRICADE. 


107 


gracefully indicated by pantomime to Hilgard 
on the night of the ball. 

Mrs. Denny considered Conrath very hand- 
some, — almost as handsome as Hilgard, and 
far more appreciative and' generally available. 
She protested that she could not endure the 
wind on the porch, and chid him for permit- 
ting his pony to nibble the young growth on 
her favorite clump of fir-trees ; but she did 
not go in, and Conrath lingered, as if he had 
something on his mind which he found it 
difficult to say. 

“ That beastly coach makes a perfect im- 
becile of a man,” he began, with more vigor 
of expression than the uncertain look in his 
eyes bore out; “I felt, when I got in on 
Wednesday night, as if I had been kicked 
from Fairplay over the pass.” 

“ Oh, I saw you,” she replied, with a teasing 
smile. “ It was plain enough that something 
had mixed you up pretty well ! I told your 
sister you were a perfect wreck, — couldn’t 
stand on your feet ; was n’t that true ? ” 

“ Did you tell her that ? ” 
u Of course I did. What was she to think 
of your leaving her at loose ends that way for 


108 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


the night ? Who was to take her up to the 
mine ? You ’re a nice brother, I must say ! 
She was a great deal more anxious about you 
than you deserved. She wanted to go to you, 
but I kept her away, — more for her* sake 
than yours ! ” 

Conrath flushed and laughed, with an awk- 
ward pretence of being amused at these ac- 
cusations. 

“ I don’t know who is to answer for all the 
fibs I had to tell her,” Mrs. Denny continued ; 
“ you can’t, because your time for repentance 
is fully occupied, — or ought to be ! ” 

Conrath, shifting, uneasily in his saddle, 
regarded Mrs. Denny’s audacity with sulky 
admiration. It gave a certain piquancy to the 
commonplace nature of his weaknesses to be 
rallied upon them by a pretty woman. 

“ Are you sure Cecil did not know how it 
was the other night ? ” he asked. 

“ Do you suppose I would tell her ? ” 

“No, but plenty of other people might. 
She has been very quiet and — well, different 
since the ball.” 

“ You are very fond of your sister, aren’t 
you, Con ? ” 


THE BARRICADE . 


109 


“ Of course I am. Why should I have 
brought her out here if I wasn’t fond of 
her?” 

“ To be sure ; that is proof enough.” Mrs. 
Denny laughed her little mocking laugh. 
“ She must be very fond of you, or she 
wouldn’t have come. How does she amuse 
herself up at the Shoshone ? ” 

“ Well, she is alone a good deal, but she is 
used to that. She walks, and reads, and looks 
at the mountains. She could ride, if I ever 
had time to go with her.” 

“ Con, when your sister has been out here 
a year she won’t need any information I or any 
one else could give her about you. She will 
know you thoroughly ; she will think you all 
out. I wonder if she will have as much faith 
in you then as she has now ? ” 

Conrath looked at Mrs. Denny uneasily. 
“ Are you preaching ? ” he asked. “ Or what 
is it you are trying to get at ? ” 

“ Does it sound to you like preaching ? If 
you can find a sermon in it, you are welcome. 
Much good may it do you ! ” 

“ Cecil is not as clever as you think,” Con- 
rath said, as if still considering Mrs. Denny’s 


110 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


words. “ She is n’t cool and sharp, like you, 
and she is n’t one of the exacting kind.” 

“ Is n't she ! ” Mrs. Denny exclaimed. “ Not 
in the way of attentions, perhaps ; hut if she 
should come to judge you once as she judges 
herself — ” 

Conrath’s horse began to be restive. 

“ Are you trying to make me afraid of my 
little sister ? ” he interrupted. 

“ You might make her your conscience,” 
Mrs. Denny replied. “ It is n’t a bad thing 
for one to be a little bit afraid of one’s con- 
science.” 

“You seem to have my failings on your 
mind — you might be my conscience your- 
self,” Conrath suggested, — “ taking it for 
granted, of course, that I have none of my 
own.” 

“ No, thank you. You will need to keep 
your conscience nearer home. Besides, I 
might be too lenient.” 

Mrs. Denny laughed, and ran into the house. 

The party set out for the shaft-house after 
the three-o’clock whistle for the change of 
shifts had blown. The ladies were wrapped 


THE BARRICADE. 


Ill 


in india-rubber cloaks, and Mrs. Denny wore 
a soft felt hat of Conrath’s on the back of her 
head, framing her face and concealing her 
hair. A miner’s coat was spread in the bucket 
to protect the visitors’ skirts from its muddy 
sides. 

“ If we keep on shipping ore at this rate,” 
Conrath said, jubilantly, “ we will soon have a 
cage that will take you down as smoothly as 
a hotel elevator.” 

Cecil was conscious that the exultant tone 
jarred upon her, and she took herself silently 
to task for this lack of sisterly sympathy. 

Mrs. Denny went down first with the super- 
intendent, who returned for Cecil ; when they 
were all at the station of the lowest level, 
they lit their candles and followed one of the 
diverging drifts, — a low, damp passage which 
bored a black hole through the overhanging 
rock before them. 

The sides of the gallery leaned slightly 
together, forming an obtuse angle with the 
roof ; it was lined with rows of timbers placed 
opposite each other at regular intervals, and 
supporting the heavy cross-timbers that up- 
held the roof. The spaces between the upright 


112 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


columns were crossed horizontally by smaller 
timbers called “ lagging.” 

The impalpable darkness dropped like a cur- 
tain before them. Their candles burned with 
a still flame in the heavy, draughtless air. At 
long intervals a distant rumbling increased 
with a dull crescendo, and a light fastened in 
the rear of a loaded car shone up into the face 
of the miner who propelled it. They stood 
back, pressed close to the wall of the drift, 
while the car passed them on the tram-way. 

The drift ended in a lofty chamber cut out 
of the rock, the floor rising at one end toward 
a black opening which led into another nar- 
row gallery beyond. 

“Here we are in the very heart of the 
vein,” Conrath explained. “ This is an empty 
‘ stope,’ that has furnished some of the best 
ore. It is all cleaned out, you see ; the men 
are working farther on.” 

“ Oh, I should like to see them ! ” Mrs. 
Denny exclaimed. “Which way is it? Up 
that horrible place ? Cecil, are n’t you com- 
ing ? ” 

Cecil had seated herself on a heap of loose 
planking in the empty ore-chamber. 


THE BARRICADE. 


113 


“ I ’ll wait for you here, if you don’t mind ; 
I am so very tired. Have you another candle, 
Harry?” 

“Yours will last; we shall not he long 
gone.” 

Conrath and Mrs. Denny scrambled, talking 
and laughing, up the slope ; their voices grew 
thinner and fainter, and vanished with their 
feeble lights in the black hole. 

Cecil closed her eyes ; they ached with the 
small, sharp spark of her candle set in that 
stupendous darkness. 

What a mysterious, vast, whispering dome 
was this ! There were sounds which might 
have been miles away through the deadening 
rock. There were far-off, indistinct echoes 
of life, and subanimate mutterings, the slow 
respirations of the rocks, drinking air and 
oozing moisture through their sluggish pores, 
swelling and pushing against their straiten- 
ing bonds of timber. Here were the buried 
Titans, stirring and sighing in their lethargic 
sleep. 

Cecil was intensely absorbed listening to 
this strange, low diapason of the under world. 
Its voice was pitched for the ear of solitude 
8 


114 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


and silence. Its sky was perpetual night, 
moonless and starless, with only the wander- 
ing, will-o’-the-wisp candle-rays, shining and 
fading in its columnated avenues, where 
ranks of dead and barkless tree-trunks re- 
pressed the heavy, subterranean awakening 
of the rocks. 

Left to their work, the inevitable forces 
around her would crush together the sides of 
the dark galleries, and crumble the rough- 
hewn dome above her head. Cecil did not 
know the meaning or the power of this inar- 
ticulate underground life, but it affected her 
imagination all the more for her lack of com- 
prehension. Gradually her spirits sank un- 
der an oppressive sense of fatigue ; she grew 
drowsy, and her pulse beat low in the lifeless 
air. She drooped against the damp wall of 
rock, and her candle, in a semi-oblivious mo- 
ment, dropped from her lax fingers, and was 
instantly extinguished. 

It seemed to the helpless girl that she had 
never known darkness before. She was plunged 
into a new element, in which she could not 
breathe, or speak, or move. It was chaos be- 
fore the making of the firmament. She called 


THE BARRICADE . 


115 


aloud, — a faint, futile cry, which frightened 
her almost more than the silence. She had lost 
the direction in which her brother had dis- 
appeared, and when she saw an advancing 
light she thought it must be he coming in 
answer to her weak call. 

It was not her brother; it was a taller man, 
a miner, with a candle in a miner’s pronged 
candlestick fastened in the front of his hat. 
His face was in deep shadow, but the faint, 
yellow candle-rays projected their gleam dimly 
along the drift by which he was approach- 
ing. Cecil watched him earnestly, but did 
not recognize him until he stood close be- 
side her. He took off his hat carefully, 
not to extinguish the candle which showed 
them to each other. Cecil, crouching, pale 
and mute, against the damp rock, looked 
up into Hilgard’s face, almost as pale as her 
own. 

No greeting passed between them. They 
stared wonderingly into each other’s eyes, 
each questioning the other’s wraith-like iden- 
tity. 

“ I heard you call,” Hilgard said. “ Is it 
possible that you are alone in this place ? ” 


116 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“No,” she replied, feebly rousing herself. 
“ My brother is here, with Mrs. Denny ; they 
are not far away.” 

“Your brother is here — not far away?” 
he repeated. A cold despair came over him. 
There was nothing now, but to tell her the 
truth; in her unconsciousness of its signifi- 
cance she would decide between them, and 
he would abide the issue. He leaned against 
the wall of the drift, wiping away the drops 
of moisture from his temples ; the short, damp 
locks that clung to his forehead were massed 
like the hair on an antique medallion. 

“ You did not know me ? ” he asked. 

“ No ; I could not see your face.” 

“ I am not showing my face here. I am a 
spy in the enemy’s camp. Your brother will 
hear the result of my discoveries, in a few 
days, from my lawyers.” 

It was roughly said, but the facts were 
rough facts ; and he could not justify or ex- 
plain himself to her, except at the expense of 
her brother. 

“ Must I tell him that you are here ? ” she 
asked. 

“I suppose so, if you are a loyal sister.” 


THE BARRICADE . 


117 


“ But I would never have known it, if you 
had not come when I called. My candle fell 
and went out. I was alone in this awful 
darkness.” 

“ But some one else would have come if 
I had n’t. You need not be grateful for 
that. Your brother would have found you 
here.” 

“ But I could not have endured it a mo- 
ment longer ! ” 

“Oh yes, you would have endured it. I 
need not have come.” 

“ Why did you come, then ? ” 

“I don’t know,” he said. “I was a fool 
to come. Why does a man come, when he 
hears a woman’s voice, that he knows, — in 
trouble ? ” 

He was groping about on the floor of 
the drift in search of her candle ; and now, 
kneeling beside her, he lit it by his own and 
held it toward her. Their sad, illumined 
eyes met. 

“ How your hand trembles ! Were you so 
frightened ? ” he asked. 

“ Yes ; does it seem very silly to you ? My 
strength seemed all going away.” 


118 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


It was madness for him to stay, but he 
could not leave her, pale, and dazed, and 
helpless as she was. 

44 Let me. fix you a better seat.” He moved 
the rough boards on which she was sitting, to 
make a support for her back. 

44 Oh, please go, and get out of the mine ! ” 
she entreated, — with voice and eyes, more 
than with words. 

44 But I cannot get out, until the next 
change of shifts. I have taken the place of 
one of the miners on this shift ; besides, I 
have not finished what I came for.” 

44 Why do you call yourself a spy ? are you 
doing anything you are ashamed of?” she 
asked, with childlike directness. 

44 I am a little ashamed of the way I am 
doing it,” he replied, with equal directness, 
44 but not of the thing I am doing.” 

44 And will it injure my brother — what you 
are doing ? ” 

44 Not unless the truth will injure him ; I 
am trying to find out the truth.” 

4 4 But why should you come in this way 
to find it out ? Surely my brother wants to 
know it too, if it is about this quarrel.” 


THE BARRICADE. 


119 


It was a home question; he could only 
answer, — 

“ Your brother is very sure that he knows 
the truth already. I want to be sure, too. I 
am not asking you not to tell him I am here. 
I have taken the risks.” 

“What are the risks?” she asked quickly. 

“ They are of no consequence compared with 
the thing to be done — I must not stay.” 

“ Ah,” she cried, with an accent of terror, 
“ they are here ! ” 

A light showed at the dark opening above 
the incline, and the thin stream of Mrs. Den- 
ny’s chatter trickled faintly on the silence. 

Cecil put out both candles with a flap of 
her long cloak. 

“ Oh, will you go ! ” 

Hilgard heard her whisper, and felt her 
hands groping for him in the darkness, and 
pushing him from her. He took the timid 
hands in his and pressed them to his lips, 
and then stumbled dizzily away through the 
blackness. 

A proposition from her companions to pro- 
long their wanderings until they had reached 
the barricade was opposed by Cecil with 


120 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


all the strength her adventure had left her ; 
but when it appeared that their way lay 
along the same drift in a direction opposite 
that by which Hilgard had made his retreat, 
she offered no further objection. Her silence 
was sufficiently explainable by the fright she 
had had in the darkness. 

The drift led to another smaller ore-cham- 
ber, where miners were at work, picking down 
the heavy gray sand, and shovelling it into 
the tram-cars. Conratli explained that this 
“ stope ” was in the new strike, claimed by the 
Led-Horse, and that the barricade guarded the 
drift just beyond. 

“ I suppose it does n’t make so much differ- 
ence whom the ore belongs to,” Mrs. Denny 
commented lightly p “ it’s a question of who 
gets it first ! Passez , passez ! You need n’t 
stop to expostulate. I am not a mining 
expert.” 

Conrath looked excessively annoyed, but re- 
frained from defining his position to this cheer- 
ful non-professional observer. As they entered 
the low passage, they found themselves face 
to face with a wall of solid upright timber- 
ing which closed its farther end, and in the 


THE BARRICADE . 


121 


midst of a silent group of men, seated along 
the side-walls of the drift on blankets and 
empty powder-kegs. 

The barricade was pierced at about the 
height of a man’s shoulders with small round 
loop-holes. Two miners’ candlesticks were 
stuck in the timbers, high above the heads of 
the guard, who lounged, with their rifles across 
their knees, the steel barrels glistening in the 
light. 

Cecil’s fascinated gaze rested on this sig- 
nificant group. The figures were so immov- 
able, and indifferent of face and attitude, so 
commonplace in type, that she but slowly 
grasped the meaning of their presence there. 
These, then, were the risks that were of no 
consequence ! 

Turning her pale face towards her brother, 
she asked, “ Is this what you have brought 
us to see ? ” 

“ I thought you knew what a barricade is ! ” 

“I never knew! I knew — I thought it 
was that,” — pointing to the wall of timber — 
“ but not this ! ” She looked toward the silent 
group of men, each holding his rifle with a 
careless grasp. 


122 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


u You would n’t make a good miner’s wife, 
Cecil,” said Mrs. Denny ; and a slow smile 
went round among the men. 

“ Hark,” said Conrath. They were still 
facing the barricade, and the dull thud of 
picks far off in the wall of rock sounded just 
in front of them. u Do you hear them at 
work ? Now turn the other way.” The sound 
came again, precisely in front. “ They are a 
long way off yet. Can you make out how 
they are going to strike us, boys ? ” Conrath 
asked of the guard. 

“ You can’t tell for sure, the rock is so 
deceivin’ ; but they seem to be cornin’ straight 
for the end of the drift.” 

“ Who are they ? Who are coming ? ” 
Cecil demanded. 

“ The Led-Horses, my dear. They may 
blast through any day or night, but they’ll 
find we ’ve blocked their little game.” 

“ What is their game ? ” Mrs. Denny in- 
quired. 

“ They claim our new strike, and, from the 
sound, they seem to be coming for it as fast 
as they can ! ” 

Cecil locked her arms in the folds of her 


THE BARRICADE. 


123 


long, shrouding cloak, and a nervous shudder 
made her tremble from head to foot. 

“ Poor little girl ! ” said Conrath, putting 
his arm around her shoulders ; “ I ought to 
have taken you straight home after the fright 
you got in the drift.” 

“ Why, do you know,” said Mrs. Denny, 
looking a little pale herself, “ I think this is 
awfully interesting. I ’d no idea that beau- 
teous young Hilgard was such a brigand. 
Just fancy, only two nights ago you were 
dancing with him, Cecil ! ” 

“ What ? ” said Conrath, turning his sister 
roughly toward him with the hand that rested 
on her shouldOr. She moved away, and stood 
before him, looking at him, her straightened 
brows accenting the distress in her up-raised 
eyes. 

“ Why should I not dance with him ? In 
this place you all suspect each other, and 
accuse each other of everything. He accuses 
you. Shall Mrs. Denny, on that account, refuse 
to dance with you ? ” 

She spoke in a very low voice, but Con- 
rath replied quite audibly, “ Don’t be a fool, 
Cecil ! ” 


124 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ Oh,” she said, letting her arms fall be- 
fore her, desperately, “ it is all the wildest, 
wildest folly that any one ever heard of! 
Men, fighting about money — that is n’t even 
their own ! Why, this is not mining, it is 
murder ! ” 

“ We ’re not fighting,” Conrath replied. 
“Half the mines in the camp are showing 
their teeth at each other; — it’s the way to 
prevent fighting. If they keep on their own 
ground there won’t be any trouble ; but,” 
turning to Mrs. Denny with a darkening look, 
“ if I catch that 4 beauteous ’ friend of yours 
on my ground, he ’ll be apt to get his beauty 
spoiled.” 

On their way back along the drift, they 
were warned by a spark of light and a distant 
rumbling that a car was approaching along 
the tram-road. They stopped, and, lowering 
their candles, stood close against the sloping 
wall while the car passed. It was at the en- 
trance to another dark gallery, and as the car 
rolled on, the warm wind of its passage mak- 
ing their candles flare, it left them face to 
face with a miner, who had also been over- 
taken at the junction of the drifts. He was 


THE BARRICADE. 


125 


tall, and his face was in deep shadow from 
the candle fastened in the crown of his hat. 
He stepped back into the side-drift, pulling 
his liat-brim down. 

“ Who was that ? ” Mrs. Denny asked. 

“ I did n’t notice him,” Conrath replied. 
“ One of the Cornish-men on the last shift. 
I don’t know all their faces.” 

“He doesn’t walk like a Cornish-man,” 
said Mrs. Denny, looking after him, “ and his 
hand was the hand of a gentleman.” They 
moved on a few paces in silence. Cecil 
flagged a little behind the others, and then 
dropped to the floor of the drift in a dead 
faint. 

It was the air, they said, — and the nervous 
shock she had suffered while alone in the 
ore-chamber. 

She let them explain it as they would, only 
begging to be left to recover herself quietly in 
her own room. 

When the little stir of Mrs. Denny’s de- 
parture had subsided, and the house was 
once more silent, Cecil rose, still pale, and 
shuddering with slight, successive chills, and 


126 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


sought the snug warmth of the kitchen. It 
was early twilight, but a lamp had been lit on 
the shelf above the ironing- table, where the 
maid was at work, rubbing and stretching her 
starched cuffs, and clapping the iron down at 
intervals on its stand. From time to time 
she bestowed a glance of sympathy on her 
young mistress’s dejected figure, crouching 
by the stove, her hands extended toward the 
steam from the kettle. 

“ Molly, if anything should happen at the 
mine, would the engine stop right away ? ” 
Cecil asked, after a long silence. 

“ Why, yes, Miss, if anything broke.” 

“ No, I mean if any one were hurt.” 

“ Well, if ’t was one of the men, maybe they 
would n’t stop,” said Molly, gravely lifting a 
fresh iron from the stove, and inverting it 
close to her glowing cheek. “ The pumpin’- 
engine don’t never stop, unless somethin’ 
breaks, or the mine shuts down for good 
an’ all.” 

“ But if it were — if anything should hap- 
pen to my brother ? ” 

“They’d stop, if the superintendent was 
hurt — of course they would, Miss.” 


THE BARRICADE. 


127 


“ The engine would stop ? ” Miss Cecil re- 
peated, lifting her head from the supporting 
hand on which it had rested. 

“ Yes, Miss, it would.” 

They were both silent, while Cecil seemed 
to listen. “ Mr. Conratli is not under ground, 
is he, Miss ? ” 

“ No, he went down to the camp with Mrs. 
Denny ; — will you open the door a moment, 
Molly ? ” 

Molly opened the door and stood against 
it, folding her bare arms in her apron, — a 
warm, bright figure, with the gray, cold sky 
of twilight behind her. The heavy heart-beats 
of the engine came distinctly from the shaft- 
house. Cecil went to the door and stood 
beside Molly, looking out at the dull sky, and 
the new, unpainted buildings, crudely set in 
the low-toned landscape of evening. 

“ Do you hear the other engine ? ” Cecil 
asked, after a moment’s doubtful listening. 

“ The one over yon, Miss ? I hear it plain 
— wait now ! It comes faint-like, between. 
Was you thinkin’ anythin’ would be hap- 
penin’ ?” 

“ I ’m always thinking something will hap- 


128 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


pen,” said Cecil, a deep sigh following her 
long-suspended breath. 

“ Yes, there ’s a mort o’ trouble with them 
mines ! ’Most every day some of ’em gets 
hurt. They gets a bucket dropped on their 
heads, or a rope breaks, or a blast goes off ; 
or they sets a kag o’ that Giant on the stove 
to warm it, and it goes off on ’em and tears 
everything to pieces.” 

“ What is 4 Giant,’ Molly ? ” 

“ It’s a kind of powder, Miss — awful inno- 
cent-lookin’ stuff, like cold grease — but it do 
send a lot o’ them poor fellows out o’ the 
world ! They gets careless, that ’s what the 
companies says.” 

“Do you know anybody in the mines, 
Molly ? ” 

“Why, yes, Miss. My brother’s on the 
Led-Horse, and I know another o’ the boys 
across the gulch.” 

“ Molly ! how strange that is ! ” 

“ Is it, Miss ? Sure, I don’t know why ! 
Tom’s been over there since ever Mr. West 
come. He worked under him in Deadwood. 
He likes Mr. West first-rate, an’ he likes Mr. 
Hilgard.” 


THE BARRICADE. 


129 


“ Who put Mr. West in, do you know ? ” 

“ Mr. Hilgard, Miss. They was a loafin’, 
drinkin’ set over there when he come out 
from the East to take holt, and he could n’t 
make nothin’ of ’em ; an’ so he clears out 
the whole lot of ’em, and Gashwiler at the 
head of ’em and the worst one of all, to put 
in Mr. West an’ a new gang o’ men.” 

“ Gashwiler — do you mean our captain ? ” 
“ I do, Miss ! ” 

“ Oh, Molly ! I never knew that ! Shut the 
door — I ’m so cold ! I never knew it ! ” she 
repeated, gazing at Molly desolately. 

“ It might be you did n’t, Miss — but it ’s 
the truth. Mr. Conrath maybe ’d pack me 
out of the house for sayin’ it, but it ’s my be- 
lief that Gashwiler ’s making the whole trouble 
between ’em. He knows the Led-Horse, every 
inch of it, Miss, and where their ore is, just ’s 
I could come in here and lay my hand on the 
flour-barrel in the dark.” 

Again in silence they listened to the beat 
of the engines. 

‘•When do the men on the three-o’clock 
shift come up, Molly ? ” 

“ At eleven o’clock, Miss.” 

9 


130 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ Why, how long they stay down there ! ” 

“ Eight hours it is, above ground, and 
eight below. I bet it seems long to them 
that ’s below ! ” 

“ Oh ! ” said Cecil, lifting her hands, and 
pressing them on the top of her head, “ I 
wish they would all resign ! ” 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 131 


VIII. 

THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 

Cecil’s life at the mine was a lonely one. 
Even the ladies who lived in the populous 
parts of the camp struggled vainly to fulfil 
duly that important feminine rite, the exchange 
of calls. There were difficulties of roads and of 
weather, and of finding the missing houses of 
acquaintances, which, in the progressive state 
of the city topography, had been unexpectedly 
shunted off into other streets. A new street 
had barely time to be named and numbered, 
before it was moved backward or forward, 
or obliterated altogether, in the intermittent 
attempts of the city government to recon- 
cile United States patents with “ jumpers’ ” 
claims. 

Cecil, two miles from the post-office, at an 
isolated mine, was out of the reach of all but 
the most persevering efforts of her new friends. 
In truth, there were not many of them. Cecil 


132 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


was a sliy girl, just out of school, with a habit 
of showing surprise at a great many things 
that were taken as a matter of course in the 
camp. Hilgard had one consolation in his 
exile from all chance of her favor : there was 
no one else who could boast of it. 

The kitchen and parlor at the Shoshone 
were separated from each other only by a 
short flight of steps, and a square, dark pas- 
sage, which opened also into Conrath’s office. 
Mistress and maid, living so near together, 
and being of nearly the same age, did not pre- 
tend to a very formal relation. The sounds 
from the kitchen plainly described to Cecil, 
in the parlor, the nature of Molly’s opera- 
tions. When they were loud and urgent; 
when Molly took the field with her canvas 
apron girt round her hips, and her wash-tubs 
in solid array ; when armfuls of wood thun- 
dered into the wood-bin, or crockery rattled, or 
resonant tins responded to her vigorous touch, 
the young mistress kept within her own pre- 
cincts ; but when footsteps trod peacefully to 
and fro between the stove and the ironing- 
table, and the clap of the iron sounded at 
intervals, or when apples bumped comfort- 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 133 


ably from the pan on Molly’s knees to the 
one on the floor beside her, Cecil ventured 
out, with her sewing, or sat idle on the steps, 
nursing her arms in her lap, and watching 
Molly’s monotonous movements with the 
pleased, curious content of a child. 

These visits had increased somewhat in 
frequency since Miss Conrath’s discovery that 
the affections of her maid were temporarily 
deposited in the Led-Horse. 

Molly had silently noted this fact, and 
hinted it to her brother, and to a tall young 
timber-man who crossed the gulch with him 
occasionally, and spent an evening in the Sho- 
shone kitchen. The young timber-man had 
been one of the two men at the cranks, who 
had hoisted Hilgard to the surface on the 
morning of his first meeting with Miss Con- 
rath. He recalled this incident for Molly’s 
benefit, who gave it its full value, and beamed 
over it with the broadest satisfaction. 

“ Sure I could see a good way out of it,” 
was her hearty if somewhat premature sug- 
gestion. “Let them consolidate the mines 
an’ put Mr. Hilgard over ’em both, an’ l$t 
her choose which side of the gulch she ’d live. 


134 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


I would n’t live over there,” Molly continued, 
indicating, with a depreciative toss of her 
head, the Led-Horse side of the gulch, “ for 
all you’ve got in the mine.” 

“ It ’s not much, thin ! ” Tom interposed, 
confidentially. 

“ The water is that hard, it ’s enough to 
take the skin off your hands,” Molly contin- 
ued, “ and the ground ’s as black as the stove, 
with the crock off o’ thim burnt woods, an’ 
every man o’ you leavin’ the print of his fut 
on the floors. Sure I might be on me knees 
from mornin’ to night, and they ’d never look 
clean ! ” 

“ You ’d not be scrubbin’ floors if you was 
over there ! ” the young timberman remarked, 
with emphasis that brought the color into 
Molly’s cheeks. 

“ And who ’d be doin’ it for me ? ” she 
asked, in a high voice. “ Is it the men that 
scrubs the floor over there and the women 
that works underground ? ” 

Cecil, alone in the silent parlor, heard the 
burst of boyish laughter that followed this 
sally, and said to herself, rather wistfully, that 
the Shoshone kitchen was much the most 
cheerful room in the house. 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN . 135 


On the days after these evening- visits, 
Molly was unusually communicative, and had 
a great deal of information to give on the 
progress of the dispute between the mines. 
Cecil did not always restrain her when she 
sometimes inadvertently passed from an atti- 
tude of respectful neutrality to one of undis- 
guised enthusiasm for the side of the Led- 
llorse. It was best to hear both sides, Cecil 
said to herself; but she heard very little on 
the side of the Shoshone in these days. 

It was becoming more and more difficult to 
talk to her brother of his affairs, and to ask 
for his confidence. He seemed unusually pre- 
occupied. He often came home late at night, 
having dined down town, and breakfasted 
alone in the long parlor at ten or eleven 
o’clock the next morning. Cecil, taking her 
walk on the windy porch, would run in for 
a moment to pour his coffee, perching oppo- 
site him with her hat on, and the wings of 
her cloak thrown back from her pretty arms. 
She would carry his cup round the table to 
him, bestowing the kiss, of custom on his 
pale, unshaven cheek. He received it gen- 
erally with fraternal indifference, but some- 


136 THEMED-HORSE CLAIM . 

/ 

times he would pull her down on the broad 
arm of his chair, pinch her small chin, and 
tell her, with careless hyperbole, that she was 
the prettiest girl west of the Mississippi. And 
she would scold him for drinking such very 
black coffee in such a large cup. 

“ Look at your hand, how it shakes, you 
stupid boy ! A man never knows how to take 
care of his health, and you won’t let me take 
care of yours for you.” 

“ Take care of your own, Cecy,” he would 
say. “ You were always the best of the whole 
lot of us.” 

Once she reminded him of an old promise to 
ride with her every day in the valley, and read 
aloud to her in the evenings. 

“ If we don’t begin soon,” she complained, 
“ the valley will be covered with snow. I 
have n’t had my habit on for six weeks, and 
I ’ve read everything in the house, through and 
through, alone here by myself all day long.” 

“ Poor little Cecy ! it is a dull cage for such 
a pretty bird ! ” Conrath would reply. “ Never 
mind; when Shoshone stock is up to thirty, 
we ’ll have some good horses, and we ’ll go 
East every winter and have our friends out 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 137 


here in summer, — and a dinner-party twice 
a week. You could go back at any time, 
you know, if you ’re getting tired of it.” 

“ You know I don’t want to go back, or 
to have dinner-parties, or anything like that. 
I only wish you would treat me more — 
more as if I could be trusted to know about 
things.” 

“ About what things, for instance ? ” 

“ About your troubles with the Led-Horse. 
Have they blasted through ? ” 

“ No, they haven’t yet. You’ve never for- 
gotten that barricade, Cecy. Now you see 
how impossible it would be to tell you things, 
as you say. The simplest thing would seem to 
you quite frightful. Girls ought not to know 
what is going on in a place like this. That ’s 
one reason why I am not so much troubled 
about your loneliness. It ’s better for you not 
to hear all the gossip of the camp, — it would 
make you unhappy.” 

This was the most intimate conversation 
they had had for weeks. A few days after- 
ward, Molly informed her mistress that the 
Led-Horse had blasted through on a level 
with the Shoshone barricade. Cecil gave a 


138 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


gasp at this news. Molly, however, assured 
her that everything was peaceable. The Led- 
Horse had no guard, and no barricade 
except the loose rock that had fallen with the 
last blast ; but its lawyers had gone down to 

the session of the district court at D with 

important testimony, and by this time the 
injunction was virtually granted. That was 
probably the reason why Conrath had turned 
so silent, and was busier than ever, Cecil 
thought. She still persisted in the belief 
that Gashwiler was responsible, and that her 
brother had been deceived up to the point 
of a distressing awakening from his costly 
delusion. 

It was nearly the middle of September. 
The season was over, when daily the dry 
winds whirled across the porch, shook the 
loose sash and, flinging a cloud of yellow dust 
against the pane, carried their rude message 
from house to house of the little settlement, 
and on along the white road to the camp. 
The season of rains was over, when daily the 
cold showers hurtled on the roof, and blotted 
out the valley ; when wild flowers blossomed 
on the pass, and lined the canons, with a 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN . 139 


phantasmal beauty. The late, passionless 
summer had come to the weary, tempestuous 
year, just as summer elsewhere was taking 
her leave. Was this a place for men, Cecil 
murmured to herself in her lonely walks, 
where even the grass, that commonest vege- 
table joy, gave up the ghost and withered in 
the autumn, as sparse and feeble as in the 
earliest spring ! 

The day after the news of the injunction, 
Cecil resolved once more to approach her 
brother on the subject of his troubles. She 
lay in the hammock, which was stretched 
across the long room, her slippered feet to 
the fire, the light from the low window shining 
on the top of her cushioned head, listening 
for the clink of a horse’s hoof on the frozen 
ground. She listened and waited, until sun- 
set faded into twilight and lamps were lit. 
Dinner was indefinitely postponed, and Cecil 
took a slight meal and a lonely cup of tea by 
the fire. With a book in one hand she read, 
and sipped her tea and listened, alternately. 
She heard the outer door of the kitchen shut ; 
silence followed — absolute silence all over 
the house. 


140 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


It was very strange of Molly to have gone 
out without permission at that hour, leaving 
her mistress alone in the house. When the 
girl came in, fully two hours afterward, Cecil 
took no notice of her, not venturing to speak 
while she felt hurt and vexed. Molly, how- 
ever, was too much excited to remark her 
mistress’s mood. Her hair was disordered, 
and her cheeks were flushed and shining with 
wind-dried tears. She came straight to the 
fire, kneeling on the rug and asking, in a loud 
whisper, — 

“ Is Mr. Conrath home yet?” 

“You know that he is not,” Cecil replied 
without looking up from her hook. 

“ There ’s something I must tell you, Miss 
Cecil, if I was to leave the house to-night ! ” 

“You seem to have done that, already, 
Molly, without regard to me.” 

Then, as Molly turned her face away and 
put her apron to her eyes, Cecil abandoned 
her attempt at dignity and leaned toward the 
girl impulsively. 

“Why, Molly, what is it?” she said, putting 
her hands on her shoulders and pulling her 
toward her. “ What are you crying about ?” 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 141 


Molly put down lier apron. 

“You’ve a right to know it, Miss,” she 
sobbed, “ if it is your own brother ; and Tom 
isn’t one to meddle except to save trouble. 
Mr. Conrath, maybe, would kill me for speak- 
in’. Gashwiler would, anyway ! ” 

“Don’t run on so, Molly! Wait a minute 
and tell me quietly ; and don’t tell me any- 
thing but the truth.” 

“ It ’s Mrs. Gashwiler, Miss, that it comes 
from, and I ’d believe every word, for she ’s an 
honest woman, though as hard as a nail — 
and what would it be to her interest? She’s 
got the same grudge as her man has against 
Mr. West and Mr. Hilgard. It’s little she’d 
care, if it was n’t for Tom.” 

Cecil sat helpless under the confusion of 
Molly’s words, feeling, in her suspense, that 
they were fraught only with misery. 

“ Tom was always good to her young ones 
when he boarded with ’em. He was packin’ 
the little lame one about whenever he got the 
chance, and she ’s never forgot it of him. She 
heard somethin’ one night between her man 
and Mr. Conrath. She was wakin’ with the 
toothache, and the walls is nothin’ but lath. 


142 


TEE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


She would n’t tell Tom wliat it was, but she 
got at him to leave the Led-Horse, for fear 
he ’d get into trouble along with it. And she 
made him promise he ’d never tell on her. 
And he ’s kep’ it till he says it hangs on him 
that heavy that he ’s bound to speak. But 
it’s to you he bid me come with it. He ’ll not 
go to one o’ his own side, but, says he, 4 Mrs. 
Gash can’t complain of me for speaking to 
Mr. Oonratli’s own sister ; for she ’s a Sho- 
shone, and who ’s got a better right to know 
what diviltry he ’s up to?’ ” 

“ Mr. Conrath, Molly — my brother ? ” 

“ Mr. Conrath ’s in it, not a doubt o’ that ; 
an’ it means trouble to the Led-Horse, or 
Gash’s wife would never be after Tom to try 
to get him out of it. An’ he won’t stir for 
me, Miss ! He ’ll stick by his own side.” Here 
Molly’s sobs broke forth. “ For God’s sake, 
Miss Cecil, you’ll not go to Mr. Conrath 
with it!” 

“ Molly, whom am I to go to ? ” Cecil’s lips 
were white, and her voice had sunk almost to 
a whisper. 

“ Go to Mr. Hilgard, Miss ! Tell him to 
look out for himself an’ for them that ’s under 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 143 


him, an’ to put more than a heap o’ rocks be- 
tween him an’ Gashwiler’s barricade. What 
good’ll his lawyers do him, when they’ve 
jumped him. That ’s what Tom says, Miss,” 
Molly went on, in her loud, vehement whis- 
per. 44 He says they ’re gone, if the law 
takes holt ; they ’ll have to pay back every 
dollar’s worth of ore they robbed Mr. Hilgard 
of, an’ it ’ll ruin them,” cried the girl, reck- 
less that she was speaking to a Shoshone. 
“ And they ’re waiting for a chance to jump 
the mine. 4 They ’ll clean her out,’ says Tom, 
* before ever the law ’ll give it back.’ ” 

44 Molly, do you ask me to go to a stranger 
to warn him against my brother ? You must 
be crazy. I cannot go to any one but my 
brother. I shall tell him nothing that you 
have told me. I am not going to betray your 
brother. I will ask him — oh, I will make him 
give it all up, and let us leave this place ! ” 

44 He ’ll never do it, Miss ! no more than 
Tom’ll leave the Led-Horse for me askin’ 
him.” 

44 Molly, please go away, and let me think 
about it by myself. You are a good girl to 
come to me ; you can trust me. If I cannot 


144 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


do any good, I will not do any harm. I must 
see my brother to-night. If it is no use, then 
we will think of some other way.” 

The two girls clung to each other with 
tears running down their cheeks. 

“ You ’d be speakin’ for them all, Miss, if 
you went to Mr. Hilgard. Sure, whatever 
hinders a fight is for one the same as an- 
other.” 

“ How could it hinder anything if I went 
to Mr. Hilgard ? ” 

“ If he ’d stop his lawin’ an’ put five good 
men in the drift, wid a barricade in front of 
’em, Gash ’d never touch him ! That ’s what 
Tom says.” 

“Do you suppose, you poor child, that 
Tom knows better than Mr. Hilgard ? ” 

“ He does, Miss, when Mr. Hilgard don’t 
know what I ’m after tellin’ you ! ” 

It was late that night when Conrath re- 
turned. Cecil sprang up quickly, her heart 
beating hard and fast, when she heard his 
horse’s hoofs on the wooden bridge leading 
to the stable. From the sounds, Conrath 
was having some difficulty in forcing his 
horse over the narrow passage. There were 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN . 145 


signs of obstinacy and nervousness on the 
part of the horse, and of temper on that of 
the rider. As the plunging and backing con- 
tinued, Cecil became alarmed. She ran to 
Molly’s door and woke her, asking for Peter, 
the stable-man. 

“ Why doesn’t he go to Mr. Conrath?” she 
demanded. “ He can’t get Andy over the 
bridge.” 

Molly did not know where Peter was, and 
Cecil, hearing Andy suddenly clatter across 
the disputed ground and stop at the stable, 
went back herself, shivering, to the parlor. 

Conrath was a long time getting into the 
house. He climbed up the end of the piazza, 
apparently with a good deal of trouble, 
bumping his knees and elbows on the piazza 
floor, in his progress. 

“ Why doesn’t he come around to the steps ? ” 
Cecil wondered. “ It must be very dark.” 

She opened the door; it was not at all 
dark. The moon had risen, and Conrath’ s 
shadow was thrown up against the side of 
the house, as he came along the piazza, walk- 
ing with a heavy, careful step. He passed 
her at the door, neither noticing nor speaking 
10 




146 THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 

to her, and, crossing the room, sank into a seat 
by the fire, without removing his hat. 

He slouched in his chair, in a helpless, dis- 
organized attitude, moving his eyes vacantly 
from her face to his own hands, which hung 
feebly in his lap. 

She knelt before him, without touching 
him. She looked long in her brother’s face, 
studying, with intense, heart-broken scru- 
tiny, the familiar features, over which some 
mysterious, sickening influence had passed. 
The change was very slight. Mrs. Denny 
would have understood it instantly. Many 
of Conrath’s friends would have been amused 
by it. Gradually the meaning of it came to 
Conrath’s sister, but it did not amuse her. 
She recoiled from him slowly, rising to her 
feet, a cold, incredulous disgust whitening 
her cheeks and her lips. It was too cruel a 
mockery of her reliance on him. She went 
away to her room and hid herself from the 
sight of him, leaving him to sleep off the 
effects of his u predilection ” by the fire. 

Cecil did not sleep ; she lay in the dark- 
ness hour after hour, shuddering, with dry, 
convulsive sobs. The trouble she had looked 


THE SHOSHONE KITCHEN. 147 


in the face that night she knew was a 
wretchedly common one, but she had never 
believed that it could touch her own life. She 
reproached herself for deserting the shabby 
figure in the chair before the fire, but to-night 
she could not feel that it was her brother. If 
that were her brother, where then could she 
look for help ? 

She made no effort to see Conrath the next 
day ; in fact, she kept out of the way of see- 
ing him until he had left the house. At noon, 
she went to Molly with a note and asked her 
to see that Mr. Hilgard received it promptly. 

“ You must give it to him yourself, Molly, 
or to Mr. West.” 

“ Thank you, Miss Cecil,” said Molly, tak- 
ing the note. 

“It may not do any good,” the girl said 
wearily, “ and I am not doing it for you any 
more than for myself.” 

“ Did you sleep any the night, Miss ? ” 

“ Why should I sleep ? Did you sleep your- 
self, Molly?” 

“ I did, Miss ; but the heart of me was 
waivin’ and dreamin.’ 1 dreamt Mr. Conrath 
was a draggin’ you over the bridge, an’ him 


148 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


on And} 7 ; an’ you was pullin’ back, but he 
had you by the hand an’ would n’t let go.” 

“ It is easy to see how you came to dream 
that, Molly,” said Cecil, a slow, painful blush 
burning itself upon her cheek. “ Do you re- 
member my knocking at your door ? ” 

“ Did you, Miss ? Last night, was it ? ” 

“ Yes, it was last night ; and it was Andy, 
not I, who would n’t go over the bridge. My 
brother would not have to drag me, if he 
wanted me to follow him anywhere.” 

Cecil kept by herself all day. She could 
not bear even Molly’s eyes upon her, while 
she was learning to bear the first pressure of 
the new and ignominious grief, which she had 
put on like a garment of penitence under the 
soft robes of her girlhood. 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 149 


/ 


IX. 

BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 

The sun was just below the Shoshone hill. 
The black, denuded pines on the liill-top 
leaned toward each other, or stood erect 
against the yellow light that streamed up- 
ward and broadened outward, through a thin, 
gray cloud that overspread the western sky. 

Cecil was hurrying down the unused trail, 
to meet Hilgard at the blazed trees. She 
felt they would be safe there from interrup- 
tion. Her heart was too heavy to flutter 
with girlish doubts and tremors. She sped 
along, beating back with her rapid footsteps 
the folds of her sombre cloth dress. 

Hilgard was waiting for her, walking about 
impatiently, one hand in the side pocket of 
his closely buttoned pea-jacket, the other 
holding the cigarette he was mechanically 
smoking. She had kept him waiting three 
quarters of an hour; he was feeling half 


150 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


angry and cheated, and altogether disap- 
pointed, when he saw her coming, among the 
gray-stemmed aspens, that were dropping all 
their pale gold leaves in the grasp of the 
autumn winds. He started toward her at 
once, forgetting his grievance at the first 
sight of her face. She explained hurriedly 
that some ladies from the camp had called 
and detained her. 

“ You know it is only trouble that brings 
me here.” 

He restrained some passionate exclamation, 
and said, as humbly and quietly as he could, — 

“ I knew, of course, it was not for your 
own pleasure or mine.” 

“ And you must have known it was the 
old trouble — between the mines,” she went 
on, without heeding his words. “ I have 
thought of a way that might make things 
less — less unhappy.” She hesitated, and he 
waited for her to explain. 

“ I have been told that you are likely to 
get the injunction against my — against the 
Shoshone ; there will be claims for damages 
against us which may be hard to settle — ” 

“ Against you — great Heavens ! They are 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 151 
v 

not my claims, and they are not against your 
brother. Can’t you make it more imper- 
sonal ? ” 

“ I am afraid I cannot,” she said, gently ; 
“ our side has been in the wrong. I believe 
that now. It is right that you should 
triumph.” 

“ Why will you call it my triumph ? If 
you could have the faintest idea what I’m 
paying for it ! ” 

“ It is your triumph, and you will be as- 
sociated with it if you stay to see it finished. 
And the failure and disgrace will be asso- 
ciated with — my brother. Wait a moment, 
please — ” She put her hand up to the black 
scarf that swathed her throat, as if to still 
the “ climbing sorrow ” there. “ I have not 
come to apologize for my brother, but — I — 
I believe he has been deceived ! He has had 
bad counsel. This is the first — first — ” * 

She could not go on, and Hilgard bowed 
his head before her. 

“ I am sure he has,” she began again, in her 
voice of stifled misery. “ And this person 
who I think has betrayed him, is an enemy 
of yours. I am sure of that too. He is a 


152 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


man with an old grudge against you, and 
against your mine. No one can tell how 
much this may have been with him in his 
influence over my brother. He might never 
have shown it. Don’t you see how it might 
embitter a dispute like this, and make it per- 
sonal, and how much harder it would make 
the settlement? The triumph of your side 
would be very hard for your enemy to bear. 
You would be hated.” 

“ These old grudges are not so dangerous 
as you think ; men hold them . till they get 
used to them, and take a certain satisfaction 
in them. I think I know the man you speak 
of, but there are a great many , men in the 
camp with grudges against me. One expects 
that in a place of this kind.” 

“ You don’t see what I mean,” she said, 
with a despairing sigh. “ I want you to re- 
move part of the cause of this trouble, before 
the time for the final settlement comes.” 

“ You want me to remove myself ? ” he 
asked. 

“Yes, I want you to go away and let some 
one else come to do that part. Then it will 
be only between the mines.” 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 153 


“ You ask me to resign ? ” 

“Yes, I do,” she repeated, with sad per- 
sistence. 

The words struck to the very core of his 
weakness. He had himself pondered the joy- 
less situation and counted the cost of its is- 
sues. The injunction was certain to be granted, 
and the suit for damages could but develop 
either inefficiency on Conrath’s part, or a de- 
liberately dishonorable policy. If that policy 
had been successful, it was not likely that any 
questions would have been asked at the Sho- 
shone home office ; but unsuccessful rascality 
was not likely to find favor even with Con- 
rath’s “ company.” The triumph of the Led- 
Horse would be complete. The arrears of its 
expenses could be paid out of the Shoshone 
ore-bins. Hilgard’s own infatuated tenacity, 
as it had probably seemed to his president, 
would be justified, — and then? He would 
go on living on his barren hill, with his hid- 
den loss and defeat burdening his spirit. The 
triumph would still be Conrath’s, through his 
sister. But if now, at this point in the con- 
test, with the cause of the Led-Horse safe in 
the hands of the law, lie might step out and 
escape the odium of success ! 


154 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


She stood by the blazed pine, pressing her 
ungloved hands hard against its corrugated 
trunk, and looking at him with an imploring 
suspense in her eyes. It was more than youth 
and passion could bear. 

“ Cecil,” he said, trying to steady his low 
accents as he spoke her name for the first 
time, “ there is only one reason why I should 
do this. I have no real enemies except those 
who keep me from you. If you will ask me 
to go for your sake, I will go to-night. Do 
you ask me to go in that way ?” 

“ Oh, I ask it, — I ask it ! What does it 
matter how I ask it? What does anything 
matter ? ” 

“ But it matters all the world to me ! I am 
not doing this for fear of any man’s hatred, 
but for love of you. I have no business to go 
— my place is here until everything is settled. 
But if a scruple is to cost me my life’s happi- 
ness, — it is too much to pay. Shall I go for 
you, my love ?” 

“ Do I ask you too much ? Is it a sacrifice 
of your honor ? ” 

Her eyes still pleaded, although she forced 
herself to give him a chance for retreat. 



BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK 


Codv negative road* and filed 
in senes LOUS^ 62 : 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 155 


“ Don’t ask me now. I don’t know what 
honor is. I only know what love is. I will 
go for you.” 

He took her hands, with the print of the 
rugged pine-bark on their tender palms, and 
held them up to his face and laid them about 
his neck. They clung there a moment. Her 
heavy hat fell back, and her fair, unsheltered 
head drooped against the rough folds of his 
coat. 

“ If I should go, how will it be when we 
meet again ? I shall not be on the other side, 
then ? ” 

“ No,” she murmured. 

“ You will come to me, whatever side I am 
on?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I have your promise, Cecil ? ” 

“ Yes, unless — ” 

“ No, nothing but your promise ! ” 

Her arms slipped down. 

“ But a great deal may happen before we 
meet again — ” 

“ Yes, but when, or where, or how we meet, 
you are mine, dearest, remember I ” 

“ Have I promised that ? ” 


156 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ That, or nothing. Don’t play with me, 
Cecil. Either you mean it, or you do not. I 
am in dead earnest. There is no reason for 
my going, except that you ask me, — the girl 
I love ! ” 

“ You must go,” she said, pushing him 
from her. “ You are going to-night ! ” 

“ To-night ! But why to-night ? ” 

“ Please, please go ! I want you to go to- 
night. I shall not dare to be happy until you 
are gone.” 

“ I might go,” he said, doubtfully, “ if there 
is time.” 

“There is plenty of time — you said you 
would go to-night. When the train goes out, 
will you be on it, George ? ” 

She let him kiss her hands and draw from 
her finger a little ring, — a slight, school- 
girl token ; she scarcely knew what he was 
doing. 

“ I want something to make it seem true. 
You have always been such a hopeless dream. 
Is it true?” he whispered, passionately. 
“ Am I sure of you, darling ? ” 

Not so sure but that, in a moment, she 
had slipped out of his arms and was running 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 157 


away in the gathering dusk, that made her 
figure almost one with the dun hillside. He 
had nothing hut her ring clasped in his hand. 
He turned away, trembling and half stupefied. 
His foot struck one of the low, gray monu- 
ment stones, and he staggered forward, saving 
himself, with a heavy jar, against a tree-trunk. 
Recovering from the shock, he missed the 
ring. He searched for it long, stooping and 
groping about on the rough ground, sifted over 
with trodden pine-needles. At last, when 
twilight settled darkly in the hollow of the 
hills, he gave up his quest and took the home- 
ward path, a pang of bereavement chilling 
his new-born bliss. 

He went to his office, wrote two or three 
letters and telegrams, and from the drawers 
and pigeon-holes of his desk he collected a 
number of papers and note-books, which he 
placed in a heap on the lid. He then went 
deliberately around the room, picking up 
various articles, in preparation for his pack- 
ing. With all these in one arm, he was about 
to put out the lamp, when he saw a sealed 
telegram lying on the floor behind his desk. 
It might have been blown off when he opened 


158 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


the door. It was with a strange reluctance 
he put down his burden and opened the tele- 
gram. The spirit of the change was upon 
him. He was impatient to be gone. At 

D he would see his lawyers and leave 

with them certain directions and papers for 
the forthcoming trial, write his farewells to his 
few friends in the camp from there, and start 
eastward at once. His formal resignation lay 
on the desk, directed to his president. 

The telegram was from Wilkinson. It read : 
“ Thrown out of court by technicality. Look 
out for jumpers.” 

He read the message over two or three times, 
then folded it and placed it in a note-book 
which he took from the breast of his coat. 
He did not take up his armful of properties 
again, but sat down by the desk, looking 
fixedly at the sealed letters before him. If 
temptation had been strong with him in the 
gulch, it was stronger now that he had yielded 
the first step ; and if his happiness had seemed 
at stake before, there were possibilities in this 
new situation which made his heart stand still. 

“ No, by heaven ! ” he exclaimed, pushing 
back his chair. “ I ’ve gone far enough. Let 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK . 159 


them get some one else to do police duty for 
them ! ” 

Nevertheless, he took up his letter to the 
president and tossed it into the fire. The 
other letters and telegrams followed. This 
was no time for resignations. He would see 
West at once. 

On inquiry, West was not to be seen. He 
had gone down to the camp. Hilgard went 
to his room, pulled open his bureau drawers, 
and began shoving various articles hastily 
into a travelling-bag. He sat on the side of 
his bed, with the bag between his knees. 

. When it was packed, he still sat motionless 
in the same position, rigid with the silent 
struggle that possessed him. 

A knock came at the door of the outer 
room. It was unlighted, except by the broad 
glow of the fire. Hilgard opened to West, 
just returned from the camp. 

“ Come in, West, I want to see you.” 

“ I want to see you , sir.” 

While Hilgard hunted for Wilkinson’s tele- 
gram in his pocket-book, West produced a 
scrap of gray hardware paper, and held it 
out to his chief. 


160 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ Just look at that, sir. I picked it up to- 
night on the counter at Bolton & Trivet’s.” 

Hilgard stooped, and held the paper to the 
fire-light, while West, turning round, with his 
lean, chilled brown hands behind him, spread 
their palms to the warmth. 

The paper bore a memorandum made with 
a broad, soft pencil. 

800 Car. 

50 Win. 

Shoshone. 

Hilgard produced his telegram and handed 
it with the paper to West. 

u There you are,” he said. 

“ Yes, sir. There ’s the whole infernal 
business,” West replied, as he studied the tele- 
gram. “ It shows what they think of us,” he 
added, with a grim smile. “ They dassent try 
it on with less than fifty Winchesters.” 

“ You can’t make anything else out of it, 
West ? ” 

“ There ain’t anything else to make. It ’s 
an old game ! I ’ve more ’n half expected it. 
I looked round a little, while I was down to 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK . 161 


the camp,” he continued, in his slow, quiet 
drawl, “ and got track o’ some boys that I 
can depend on. Told ’em they ’d better come 
along up soon ’s they could. They ’ll come 
all fixed. If you don’t like it, sir, it won’t 
make a bit o’ difference to them. They can 
keep their mouths shut.” 

“ It ’s all right — it ’s the only way.” 

Hilgard stepped back and closed the bed- 
room door on his preparations for departure. 
West stood with his hack to the fire, his eyes 
fixed on the toe of his extended boot, which 
he grated hack and forth on the bricks of the 
hearth. He did not lift his eyes as Hilgard 
came toward him again, but remarked to the 
toe of his boot, — 

“ Wish you ’ d git out of the camp. To-night 
ain’t any too soon. You can trust the Old 
Horse to me, sir ! I ’ll hold her in spite of 
hell ! ” He looked up now, with a keen gleam 
lighting his blue eyes. “Damn it, you ’ ve got 
friends in the East ! ” 

“I have one friend here, it seems,” said 
Hilgard. 

The two men looked into each other’s faces, 
silently. 


11 


162 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


“We’ll hold her together, West! — Come, 
there ’s no time to talk ! ” 

At twelve o’clock that night, West and 
Hilgard were hurrying over the frozen ground 
toward the shaft-house. The old moon had 
risen with a circle round her imperfect disk. 
Long, white clouds were banked in the south- 
ern sky, and there was a chill foreboding of 
snow in the air. 

“She hasn’t shut down,” West remarked, 
looking across the gulch toward the Sho- 
shone. 

“Very likely she won’t; it’s a good blind 
for us, and she has men enough. They 
must have noticed that we are all quiet over 
here.” 

44 I took care of that, sir. 1 told Tom Ryan 
to give out, kind o’ promisc’us, down to the 
boardin’-house, that we ’re in a kind of a 
scrape over here — pump broke down. He ’s 
always jawin’ back and forth with ’em.” 

“ West, I wish you had n’t done that,” Hil- 
gard said, sharply. 

West replied with some heat, — 

44 Good Lord! They ’re five to one — ain’t 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK. 163 


that enough ? If they want to try it on, let ’em 
try it to-night ! ” 

There was an ominous stillness in the Led- 
Horse shaft-house. The low moon looked in 
through the bare, dusty windows, where a 
group of men with rifles slanted between their 
knees sat around an old cast-iron stove. The 
engine was silent. The only sounds in the 
dim place were the steady boring of an auger 
in the hands of some person unseen, and the 
fire, leaping and roaring in the stove, which 
had flushed a sullen red, and emitted sharp 
lines of light through its cracks. The auger 
stopped boring as Hilgard and West entered. 
There was a shoving of gun-stocks and of 
heavy boots on the gritty floor, but no one 
spoke. 

Hilgard looked about him at the hasty 
preparations for defence. The iron plates of 
the platforms had been taken up and turned 
on edge against the thin board walls. Loaded 
ore-cars, taken from the tracks, barricaded 
the weakest points. The auger had been bor- 
ing loop-holes in the sides of the shaft-house, 
above the line of protection. 

“ We ’ve got you pretty well fixed, up here, 
boys, if they should make a rush on top.” 


164 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ They’ll be fools to try it,” West remarked 
aside. “ You can’t shove a lot of ten-dollar 
fighters against an armed shaft-house ! ” 

“ West, send those six men down the lad- 
ders. We ’ll take the bucket,” the superin- 
tendent ordered. 

“ 1 reckoned I could hold the drift alone, 
with a Winchester,” West ventured, in his 
most indifferent voice. “A Winchester’s 
mighty comprehensive ! ” 

Hilgard’s eye was on him, but he carefully 
avoided it. There was an imperceptible stir 
of appreciation among the men around the 
stove. 

“ Two Winchesters will be more comprehen- 
sive than one. The fight will be there ! ” 

“ I wish you would n’t go down, sir,” said 
West, almost shyly. 

“That’s enough about that, West.” Hil- 
gard turned to the men. “ Murtagh, take 
care of the boys up here. Lower us away ! ” 
At the word, Hilgard and West each 
grasped the rope and stepped, with a quick, 
concerted movement, to the edge of the 
bucket; standing so, face to face, firmly 
balanced, with rifle in one hand and the 


BETWEEN DAYLIGHT AND DARK . 165 


shuddering rope in the other, the two men 
dropped out of sight into the black hole. The 
rope swung in wider circles; it slapped two 
or three times against the sides of the shaft ; 
the click of the brake sounded. 

“ They ’re down,” some one said. 

The droning auger began boring again. 
One of the men by the stove drew his gun 
across his knees, looked critically at the bar- 
rel, wiped it with his sleeve, and said, — 
“Hope they won’t come up in the bucket 
with a coat over ’em.” 


166 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


X. 

CONRATH COMES HOME. 

A young girl’s mood seldom keeps the 
balance between joy and pain ; it will lean, 
with all tlie emotional force of her crescent 
life, alternately to one extreme or the other. 
Cecil’s brief calendar of years had counted 
no vigil like that of the night before ; it was 
but natural there should be a strong recoil 
from such intolerable pain. She did not feel 
the reaction until long after her tryst with 
Hilgard was over. Her timid joy in that con- 
tract was not quick to assert itself. It grew 
with solemn gladness in the quiet hours, and 
met with its warm, strong current, the bitter 
waters that had spread in the watches of the 
night, laying waste her pride of life. Her 
pride was prostrate still, but love can do 
much to heal the wounds of youthful pride. 

Cecil walked, with noiseless step, hack and 
forth the length of the fire-lit room ; her 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 


167 


shadow, mounting the low walls to the ceiling, 
followed her with grotesque exaggerations of 
her movements. She was alone, but to-night 
she felt no loneliness. Since she had first 
seen him she had never permitted herself to 
think of Hilgard. But now her* eyes drooped, 
and blushes burned on her cheeks, rebuking 
the vision that answered her thoughts too 
vividly. Something in his image, as it came 
before her that night, troubled her. Was it 
his beauty, that seemed fit rather for a pa- 
geant of love than for love’s unseen abnega- 
tions ? Was it the contrast between Hilgard’ s 
knightly integrity and her brother’s shabby 
part in life ? She had clothed herself in 
Conrath’s weakness and humiliation, as in 
a robe of mourning. Would her lover accept 
her in her weeds ? Could her future include 
both Hilgard and her brother ? 

The struggle was over in which she had 
tried to preserve her loyalty to Conrath’s 
cause in the face of a growing conviction that 
he was in the wrong. She found a certain 
rest in admitting the truth and falling back 
on the next lower level of womanly faith, 
that he had been deceived to the last. Now 


168 


THE LED -HORSE CLAIM. 


there would be no more talk of mine and 
thine. Conrath would go East ; he could not 
desire to stay when this wretched business was 
over. There, among safer conditions, with old 
friends around him, he would regain his old 
life. She could find merciful excuses for him 
in the past. They had been two motherless 
children, constantly changed about from one 
temporary home to another, and from one 
boarding-school to another, until school days 
were over. She had known but little of her 
brother’s life in the interval between his 
school days and the marriage of their father, 
which had made the brother and sister more 
dependent on each other. That marriage 
had not given them a mother; it had only 
separated them a little more from their father. 
It was then Conrath had made himself his 
sister’s protector and provider. How proud 
she had been of his new honors and responsi- 
bilities, and how grateful for the home he had 
brought her to ! She stopped, in that terror 
of the future and its incompatibility with the 
past, which chilled her dreams of happiness. 
How could they ever be reconciled ? 

At bedtime Peter came in with an armful 


CON RATH COMES HOME. 


169 


of heavy green logs for the fire. Cecil went 
into the kitchen and said good-night to Molly, 
who was dozing over a novel by the store ; 
she fastened the doors, wound the clock, and 
curled herself into the hammock, wrapped 
in a Navajo blanket. She left the curtains 
undrawn, — a custom in the camp, that the 
house might not be dark to a friend outside. 
She would watch these last hours, until the 
train went out, and bid her lover a silent, 
prayerful good-speed. 

She swung herself gently to and fro, watch- 
ing the shadows in the room, chased by the 
flame-flashes. The hammock swung slower 
and slower. One arm dropped over its side ; 
the warm, relaxed hand softly unclosed ; the 
long shadow wavering on the carpet rested, 
and Cecil slept. 

The fire flamed and crackled and smoul- 
dered down. The sky thickened, and the 
stars struggled to keep their lookout above 
the restless lights of the camp. The windows 
of peaceful, frugal homes were dark, but lights 
burned still in the house of sickness, in the 
house of revelry, and in the house of death. 
Underground, where day and night are inter- 


170 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


changeable, the ceaseless labor went on. The 
night traffic of the camp went on ; late foot- 
steps sounded on the resonant board side- 
walks. Watchers by lonely prospect-holes 
renewed their fires. 

The moon rose above the hill across the 
gulch, and looked in through the window, — 
a sinister old moon, leaning with one cheek 
awry above a ragged pillow of cloud. She 
knew the strifes and the secrets of the camp. 
She looked in many uncurtained windows 
that night, upon many sleepers and many 
who longed for sleep, and upon many to 
whom such fair, innocent sleep as Cecil’s 
would never come again. The young girl lay 
alone in the shadowy room and slept, while 
the night waned, rmconscious of the drear pro- 
cession of to-morrows that awaited the cold, 
beckoning finger of daylight. She slept, while 
across the gulch, in another shadowy room, 
the defenders of the Led-Horse sat, with 
their rifles across their knees, in a fateful 
silence. 

A log parted, and fell, and rolled forward 
on the hearth, filling the room with smoke. 
Cecil woke and rose up to mend the fire, 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 171 


opening the door to let the smoke escape. 
She stood a moment looking out. It came 
to her with a shudder, how in that same low 
light the night before she had waited at the 
door for her brother’s heavy step, and she 
prayed that he might not come home that 
way to-night. 

At that moment, the eastward-bound train 
went clanging and rumbling out of the town ; 
its roar was deadened now in the deep cut, 
now loud again below the hill, dying gradually 
on the long grades of the first descent. He 
was gone. Thank God for that ! But what 
was this unwonted stillness of the night? 
What sound did she miss from those familiar 
daily and nightly sounds she had ceased to 
listen for in their continuousness? She lis- 
tened now, and her own pulses throbbed, 
heavy and fast, as it came to her that the 
pulse of the Shoshone had stopped beating. 
Its engine was silent, and from the opposite 
hill there came not a sound. Both mines 
were dumb. 

Cecil’s first impulse was to waken Molly 
and send her to the shaft-house for news, but 
she forbore. “ Let her sleep, poor girl,” she 


172 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


thought, “ it may mean trouble for her as well 
as for me.” 

She shrank from going out herself to meet 
whatever event might be coming. She waited 
an hour, — an hour of hopeless expectation. 

It was now three o’clock. The night had 
changed ; fleecy moving clouds pervaded the 
sky, and the moon, wading through them as 
through drifted snow, occasionally showed a 
bright segment of her disk. 

She heard footsteps approaching the house, 
treading slowly over the frozen mud. They 
paused near the end of the piazza, and low 
voices of men spoke together. Then a single 
tread went quickly around the house to the 
outer door of the kitchen. 

Cecil rose up, wan as a star at daybreak. 
The first knock came, — low, repeated with 
brief pauses, as if the knocker listened for 
some stir within the house. 

The footsteps outside moved forward to- 
ward the steps of the porch, — a horrible, 
four-footed human tread, — shuffling nearer, 
heavily mounting the steps, grating across the 
floor of the porch, — pausing at the door. 
Something was laid down at the very thresh- 
old of that door. 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 


173 


She could not go and open it. 

The knocking continued. A man’s step 
passed along the porch and a face looked in 
at the window, — looked in Cecil’s face and 
started back. 

Slowly she dragged herself the length of 
the long room and felt her way through the 
dark passage to the kitchen. 

The knocking was loud on the outer door. 
She crept to the door of Molly’s room and 
heard the girl moving, and her low voice 
speaking from the window to one outside. 

“ Whist, for God’s sake ! I ’m cornin’ ! ” 

She clung helplessly to the door, and Molly, 
opening it, took her in, and half carried her 
to the bed. She pressed her down into it, 
and covered her deep under the bedclothes. 

“ Lie still ! Don’t stir till I come,” she 
whispered, with her warm cheek laid upon 
Cecil’s. 

“ Molly, the engines have stopped ! I must 
go myself ! It is for me ! ” Cecil tried to rise 
in the bed. 

“ Whatever it is you ’ll know soon enough ! 
I ’ll come to you with it, Miss Cecil, dear.” 

Molly shut the bedroom door behind her, 


174 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


opened the door of the kitchen, and spoke with 
some one outside. Cecil heard her close the 
door again, and heard the footsteps outside re- 
turning around the house to the porch. Molly 
went on through the kitchen, carefully closing 
all the doors behind her, as if the sounds in 
the house were a pestilent wind from which 
she would protect her mistress. 

Cecil, lying alone in the dark room, be- 
numbed by the keenness of her anguished 
dread, fell off into a half-unconscious dream 
of some hovering horror. Suddenly she 
sprang up. Molly was bending over her. A 
candle on a stand showed the girl’s face 
plainly. Cecil asked no questions. She rose 
from the bed, and, holding Molly’s hand, fol- 
lowed her in silence back through kitchen and 
passage to the parlor. 

Three miners stood with their backs to the 
fire. They took off their hats as the women 
entered, and one of them, a smooth-cheeked 
young fellow, meeting Cecil’s eyes, turned 
away his own, and rubbed one arm hastily 
across his face. 

That which she had dreaded to see was not 
there, but one end of the hammock had been 


CONRATH COMES HOME . 175 


unslung ; it lay coiled on the floor, and across 
the place where she had been sleeping, foot- 
steps, crowding upon each other, had printed 
themselves on the carpet in the yellow mud 
of the mine, making a diagonal track from 
the outer door to the door of her brother’s 
bed-chamber. 

Cecil’s eyes followed that track ; then she 
lifted them to Molly’s face, drawing her 
breath with a deep, hard gasp. 

The faithful girl took her young mistress 
into her arms and gathered her close, rocking 
her gently in her strong embrace, and moan- 
ing over her like, a mother over a child in 
pain that cannot be relieved. 

Gashwiler stepped out from the group of 
three by the fire, saying in the heavy whis- 
per of a man who has no low tones in his 
voice, — 

“ Miss, he was dead at the first shot ! ” 

Molly felt a sharp quiver pass over the 
form locked close in her arms ; she darted a 
fierce glance at Gashwiler, but he went on in 
his merciless whisper, — 

“ It was all over, Miss, two hours ago. We 
lost the fight when he was shot ! ” 


176 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


“ God help them that begun it ! ” said 
Molly, her eyes fixed on Gashwiler’s face. 

Cecil lifted her head. 

64 Hush ! hush ! Let me go to him ! ” 

Cecil looked out the next day on a white 
world. Snow lay deep on the pass ; its soft 
mantle covered the rugged canons ; it whitened 
the windward side of the pine-trunks and 
the gray canvas covers of the freight-wagons, 
bemired in the deeply rutted roads; it lay 
smooth on the roofs of the town, and dead- 
ened the tramping of feet on the board side- 
walks ; it had obliterated all the devious foot- 
prints of the night before, — it had hidden 
that track from the Shoshone shaft-house to 
Conrath’s door. 

Conrath’s door no longer. He would go 
out of it once more, and then the account 
between the Led-Horse and the Shoshone 
would be settled. There was no more talk of 
mine and thine for Conratli, lying straight- 
ened on his unused bed. It had come to 
Cecil in her long watch beside him that this 
was the only way in which his future could 
be reconciled to his past. It was better for 


CONRATH COMES HOME . 


177 


him to lie so, his rash struggle over, empty- 
handed, claiming nothing, refuting nothing. 
Better that silence, that dignity of rest, that 
look of his boyhood stealing back over the 
hardened features of his manhood, than a 
triumphant bringing home of sheaves that 
had been wrested from a fellow-laborer. He 
had atoned to the uttermost, with all that a 
man has to give in restitution for wrong, — a 
wrong attempted but not accomplished. The 
account weighed now on the other side. She 
was humbly thankful that she would never 
have to know whose hand had turned the 
scale. 

These were the thoughts that sank, cold 
and still as the snow-flakes falling from the 
gray sky, into Cecil’s bruised heart, smother- 
ing the passion of her grief. 

The snow fell all day. It clung to the 
window-sashes, and melted from the logs that 
were laid upon the fire. The trail that led 
down into the gulch was buried out of sight. 
The yellow gold of the aspens would not be 
seen again until it had been transmuted into 
sodden leaf-mould. The low monument-stones 
were hidden; the scars on the young trees, 
12 


178 THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


bearing the marks of human possession, had 
been sealed out of sight by the impartial 
hand which keeps no record of the contracts 
of men ; and Cecil’s little ring, with its graven 
motto, Bieu vous garde , lay deep under the 
snow. 

A few people came from the town that day 
of storm to offer their help and sympathy to 
the lonely household. Molly received them 
all, and spared her mistress the questions and 
the exclamations. 

Toward dusk Hilgard came ploughing 
through the snow to the kitchen door, and 
asked Molly if he could see her mistress. A 
fire had been kindled in Conrath’s office, and 
Cecil had spent many hours of the day sitting 
there alone. Molly told Hilgard to go into 
the parlor, and went herself to the office to 
seek her mistress. 

Hilgard went into the parlor and found 
Cecil there. 

Among the rumors of the day that had 
come dimly to her ears was one that the 
train eastward bound had been blocked by 
snow in the valley. When she saw Hilgard 
enter the room, she accepted the fact of his 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 


179 


sudden return as the natural result of her 
longing for him. She had thought he would 
hear of her sorrow first when he was thou- 
sands of miles away ; but the merciful snow 
had checked him, and the news had brought 
him back. Bad news travelled quickly, and 
he would lose no time in coming to her. This 
was the rapid, unreasoning instinct that took 
the place of surprise at the sight of him. 

She went to him, and all her simple, un- 
questioning need of him spoke in her face as 
she raised it to his, putting up her arms like 
a child. 

In the full knowledge of what was before 
him, he took her in his arms and held her 
close, in a silent, remorseful embrace. 

Drawing his head down to hers, with her 
hands clasped behind his neck, she whis- 
pered, — 

“ You are all that I have left.” 

He did not speak, but gently unclasped 
her hands and moved a little away from her. 
Would she ever come to him again and put 
up her arms to him, owning him as her only 
earthly refuge? 

She did not seem to understand his with- 


180 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


drawing from her. She stood a moment 
looking at him helplessly, and then sat down 
in the nearest chair. . 

“ Did you hear of it, and come back ? You 
knew how I would need you.” 

“ No, I did not come back.” 

She kept her eyes on his face, without lis- 
tening to his words. 

“ You must not look so ! You must not 
suffer so for me ! Ah, think how much 
worse it might have been! If you had not 
gone — ” 

“ Cecil, I did not go! You must try not to 
be hard on me. It had come to the clinch — 
I could not go ! ” 

“ You must have gone ! ” she said, rising 
and confronting him with her white face of 
dread. “ I heard the train go out.” 

“ I was not on it. Will you sit still, Cecil ? 
I will tell you all.” 

“I do not wish to hear it — I cannot hear 
it!” 

“ Do you think I need not tell you ? You 
will let it rest ? God bless you, my dearest!” 

“ No, no ! ” she moaned. “ You will have 
to tell me ! ” 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 


181 


He waited until he could speak, and then 
spoke fast, in hard, unmodulated sentences. 

44 1 went down to hold the drift. We heard 
them open the door of the barricade, but we 
could not see their faces. It was dark in the 
drift. We called to them to stop. There 
was firing. I don’t know who fired first.” 

44 How many were you ? ” 

44 We were two ! ” 

44 No, no ! ” she pleaded, wildly. 44 There 
must have been more than two ! ” 

44 The others were not down. Before God, 
I don’t know who did it ; it lies between 
West and me ! ” 

They looked at each other in the desolate 
silence that followed, and then she asked, — 

44 Why did you go down ? ” 

44 West would have gone alone. You cannot 
ask me why I did not let one of my men take 
my place ? ” 

44 It does not matter,” she said. 

44 No, it does not matter ; the responsibility 
is mine. Cecil, I am the same man you gave 
your promise to last night. I do not love 
such work. I went into it, sick at heart. I 
wish, God knows, I were in his place ! ” 


182 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ I wish we both were. Oh ! my heart is 
broken ! ” 

“ But you cannot mean that it ’s all over 
between us? Does it make no difference that 
it was forced upon me ? I have to say it : 
We were on our own ground ; their barricade 
was fifty feet within our lines. A barricade 
that is only for defence does not have a door 
in it ; and, Cecil, they were five to one ! ” 

“ You are talking about my brother ! ” 

He could say no more. 

“ I am not judging you,” she pleaded, in 
answer to his look of dumb, passionate 
despair. 

“ No, you are only sentencing me without 
judgment. At least, you will not refuse 
what poor help I can offer you now ? There 
are things to be done for you which only a 
man can do. Is there any one here who 
has a better right than I — than I had last 
night ? ” 

“ They have telegraphed for my father. Oh, 
forgive me ! ” she murmured, leaning towards 
him with an agony of pity in her eyes. 

He did not see it. He sat facing the win- 
dow, and the pitiless, white stare of the snow- 


CONRATH COMES HOME . 


183 


laden sky outside. When he spoke again, his 
voice had lost the accent of appeal. 

“ I did not know you had a father.” 

“ What have we known of each other ? We 
are strangers. Oh, it has all been too sud- 
den, too rash ! It began wrong ! ” 

“ Then let us begin over again ! I will go 
away now. I will wait. I will not ask to see 
you for a long time. But you will give me 
some hope in the future ? I have had no 
chance to show my love for you. It is true, 
we do not know each other. But shall we 
not know each other some day ? It is not 
just to set this awful fatality forever between 
us ! ” 

She looked at him as if asking him to un- 
derstand without words, which came so hard. 

“ I am doing nothing,” she said. “ It is 
done already. We must keep apart, because 
that is the only way to bear it.” 

“ Cecil, you cannot mean it ! Why, great 
Heaven ! if I were the lowest criminal, there 
would be some poor fool of a woman to cling 
to me ! You disgrace me for life. I have 
done what was simply my duty. But I did n’t 
expect you to feel that. I counted on your 


184 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


mercy. I thought you would forgive me, — 
as you forgive your brother, — as I forgive 
him. For, if this is what you mean, Heaven 
knows, I too have something to forgive ! ” 

“ There can be no forgiveness between us,” 
she said, piteously. “ Oh, cannot you under- 
stand ? If you were old or crippled ; if your 
life were spoiled in some way, I would share 
it with you. I would go away with you now, 
if I could suffer with you. But, if we were 
together, we should not suffer. We should be 
happy — after a while.” 

“ Ah, yes ! ” he moaned, “ we should be 
happy. What have we done that we should 
not be happy ? ” 

“ You will be happy, I hope — but not with 
me. Not with — his sister ! ” 

“Why don’t you say it out? Am I his 
murderer, that you hold off from me like 
that ? ” Her meek but inflexible resistance 
maddened him. “ Cecil, my little girl, you 
did love me. Do you love me now ? And 
will you not let me try to heal the hurt I have 
given you ? ” 

“ I love you,” she said, resisting his em- 
brace, “ but not in that way ! ” 


CONRATH COMES HOME. 


185 


“ There is no other way ! ” 

“ Is there not ? If it had been you, instead 
of him — ” 

“ If it had,’’ — he wrested the words from 
her, — “ and if he were in my place, now, 
would you disown him for my sake ? ” 

“ I could not do that ; I could not break 
a tie that is in my blood.” 

“ Is there no tie, then, between us ? ” 

She leaned her head low between her 
hands. 

“ We made it ourselves. I made it, self- 
ishly. I made you come to me ; do you 
remember ? ” 

Did he remember! Only last night her 
head had rested on his breast ; now there was 
no help or shelter of his she would ever seek 
again. 

She sat with her hands tightly locked 
together in her lap, white, trembling, but 
immovable. 

“ There is another way ! If you were — as 
he is now — would I not love you? You are 
the same to me as he is; you are dead 
to me ! ” 

Her strength suddenly deserted her, and 


186 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


she broke into wild sobs. He knelt beside 
her and forced her gently into his arms. 

“ Cecil, you cannot put me out of your life, 
like this, with a word! You cannot mean to 
mock me with a love that denies our very 
humanity. It is nonsense to say I am dead 
to you, when every nerve in my body starts 
at your touch. Did we make that tie ? It is 
the oldest, the strongest tie between man and 
woman. There is no duty that can break it. 
I am your duty and you are mine, in the 
sight of God. There is no law that forbids 
me to love you.” 

“There is an instinct that forbids me, — I 
must follow that ! ” 

She struggled to her feet. He rose, too, 
and stood before her, white with the passion 
of his last appeal. 

“You have done your duty, in spite of the 
cost,” she said. “ But you cannot judge for 
me. A woman’s duty is different.” 

A belief that he must, in the end, prevail, 
had unconsciously supported him, and fed his 
persistence ; but it forsook him now as he 
looked in her face. He continued to look at 
her a moment ; something like a shiver passed 


CONRATH COMES HOME . 


187 


over him ; then his words came heavily, like 
the first sluggish drops following a deep 
wound. 

“ Are you so sure that this is your duty ? ” 

“Oh, if you only had not been so sure of 
yours!” she faltered, dealing this last blow 
helplessly, and hearing herself speak as if her 
voice were the voice of some one else, pro- 
nouncing his doom and her own. 

There was a loud knock on the outer door. 
The same ominous hand delivered it that 
had knocked in the watches of the night 
before. Cecil started at the sound, and turned, 
in her terror, to Hilgard. It was the one, 
moment when she might have yielded. 

The knock was repeated. She made a ges- 
ture toward the door, and as Hilgard turned 
to open it she escaped from the room. 

It was Gashwiler who stood on the thresh- 
old. 

“Go to the other door!” Hilgard said, 
fierce with the anguish that was mounting in 
his blood. 

His words were like a curse. The two men 
looked each other in the eyes for an instant, 
then Gashwiler retreated down the steps, 


188 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


and around the corner of the house to the 
kitchen. 

Hilgard plunged through the melting drifts 
that hid the trail, dashing the wet snow from 
the low fir-boughs. A storm of revolt was 
let loose within him. He saw no justice, no 
logic, in his fate. Its mockery was yet in 
store for him. 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 189 


XI. 

THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 

A telegram to the home-office, convey- 
ing the news of the fight and its result, was 
immediately followed by Hilgard’s formal 
resignation. 

This step was not taken from any con- 
sciousness of mistaken or excessive zeal, but 
from the personal aspect of the situation. 
His letter of resignation was accompanied 
by a brief statement of the circumstances 
that had led to the fight, and which had 
made it, so far as the Led-Horse was con- 
cerned, inevitable. The answer to his tele- 
gram prepared him for the prompt acceptance 
of his resignation. It was carefully worded, 
and evidently intended as an official comment 
on his action. It was as follows : — 

“ Officers of company deplore unhappy 
tragedy of twenty-second. They repudiate 


190 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


measures requiring sacrifice of life for prop- 
erty. Less violent policy would better repre- 
sent company.” 

The administration in the East, while con- 
ceding discretionary power to the executive 
in the West, was keenly sensitive to any 
responsibility fwhich might attach to itself 
through the exercise of that power. 

“ They don’t repudiate the mine,” Hilgard 
said to himself, bitterly. “ Their scruples 
won’t prevent their pocketing the dividends 
after they have washed their hands of the 
men who saved their property.” 

For himself he did not care ; it seemed but 
a grimace of that fate which had first dealt 
him its crudest blow; but it hurt him to 
think of West. The only elaborate part of 
his letter had referred to West’s share in the 
discovery and the quenching of the plot. He 
had taken a chief’s pride in the loyalty and 
courage of his adjutant, and he commended 
him earnestly to his successor. Perhaps 
some recognition of his service, the kind of 
service that has no price, would come later. 
In the mean time he suppressed the telegram. 
He was ashamed to read it to the man who 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 191 


had said, “I reckon I could hold the drift 
alone ! ” 

“ They think it ’s a kind of Border-ruffian- 
ism,” Hilgard said to himself ; “ they don’t 
consider it legitimate mining.” 

It could not add to his hopelessness, but 
it embittered it somewhat, to find himself 
classed with the very men whose principles he 
had sacrificed his life’s happiness to defeat. 

. That element of the camp of which the 
Shoshone policy was the exponent accepted 
Conrath as its martyr. Gashwiler would 
have been a far less interesting figure in 
death. He and Conrath were both jumpers; 
but Gashwiler was known to be a professional 
jumper, while Conrath could claim the dis- 
tinction of an amateur. Gashwiler was not 
young and handsome, not supposed to come 
of a good Eastern family. Gashwiler’s family 
was a subject of general indifference. He 
was not particularly free wdth his money. 
There were no ladies of fashion in the camp 
who would be likely to exchange reminiscen- 
ces of his attentions to themselves, or com- 
pare their respective degrees of intimacy 
with the hero of the hour. Even the sober, 


192 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


thoughtful citizens, who would have dismissed 
Gashwiler’s removal with the unperplexed 
sentiment that he had got his deserts, found 
a certain pathos in the fate of his young 
chief, cut off by an act of wild justice, at the 
beginning of his career. 

Few stopped to think what that career was 
likely to have been. The more picturesque 
portion of the population of the camp was 
ready to say, “ Poor fellow!” in the general 
consciousness that the compassionate epithet 
might eventually apply nearer home. Of such 
frail clay were they themselves fashioned. 

A delay, inexplicable to Conrath’s friends, 
in the reply to their telegram to his father, 
roused a good deal of feeling among them. 
It was hastily assumed that Conrath’s family 
had “ gone back ” on him. The facts of the 
case were, that when the telegram reached 
New York, his father was on shipboard be- 
tween that city and Havana, where his wife 
had been ordered by her physician to spend 
the winter. The silence was certainly far 
from paternal. The camp was sensitive on 
the point of its relations with the East, es- 
pecially in the event of death. Whatever 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 193 


their indifference or faithlessness to their 
Eastern ties during life, the men of Con- 
rath’s rank on the frontier confidently ex- 
pected those ties to contract in the extreme 
moment, and restore them to their early 
associations. 

Without waiting for the silence of Conrath’s 
father to be explained, the Shoshone partisans 
rose in wrathful championship of their in- 
sulted comrade, and said : — 

“ If they can’t bury him decently, damn 
him, we ’ll bury him ourselves ! ” The case 
of the living sister could wait on that of the 
dead brother. 

It was on this honorable errand Gashwiler 
had come, when he encountered Hilgard in 
the first strong agony of his bereavement. 

Gashwiler did not see Miss Conrath, but 
he had a long and exciting argument with 
Molly, who protested that her mistress should 
not be disturbed on this or any other business. 
She indignantly repudiated, in her mistress’s 
name, the offered honors to the dead. 

“ Would n’t ye leave her even the body? 
Sure, she 'll never sit behind that hearse — 
trailin’ through the streets along with the 
13 


194 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


lot of you, an’ your music, an’ your mil’t’ry ! 
She ’s not proud of his dyin’, that she ’d want 
the whole camp to be throopin’ after ’im. The 
least ye can do is to leave him to her now ! ” 

But Molly could not prevail alone against 
the resolute sympathy of Conratli’s constitu- 
ency. All she could do was to soften the 
proposition by a little merciful deception, and 
present it as a decent, kindly offer to give the 
chief of the Shoshone appropriate burial at 
the hands of his fellow-Masons and comrades 
of the militia regiment to which he had be- 
longed. Cecil gave her helpless consent, with 
the condition that all the expenses should be 
referred to her father. She was too far pros- 
trated in body, as well as in spirit, to know 
more of the last scene in the tragedy of her 
life, than such dreary echoes as penetrated 
the darkened seclusion of her chamber. 

Conrath’s body was borne out of the house 
and conveyed to the camp, where it lay in 
state in the unfinished hall of the new Ma- 
sonic temple, to be gazed upon by the mul- 
titude. It was subsequently enshrined in a 
plumed hearse, drawn by eight horses, fed 
on hay at one hundred dollars a ton. It was 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 195 


preceded by the regiment of militia, keeping 
step through the miry snow of the street, 
with guns reversed, to the measures of the 
Dead March. The band which furnished 
the music was attached to one of the prin- 
cipal variety theatres, and, in the intervals 
of its regular performance, was often re- 
quired to assist at funerals, when the camp 
publicly honored some favorite actor in its 
social dramas, on his exit from the stage. 
The Masonic society marched behind the 
hearse in full regalia, followed by the fire 
companies and the populace. The latter had 
turned out promiscuously, on foot, or mounted 
on “ livery horses ” of uncertain gait and tem- 
per, and might be relied on to appear at anj r 
point in the procession, according to its ca- 
price, joining the ranks of the Masons, the 
militia, or the firemen, and keeping up a 
current flow of conversation on topics more 
or less relevant to the occasion. The cortege . 
moved on slowly along the principal streets 
of the town, and out through its straggling 
suburbs to the cemetery. 

The ladies who joined in this public tribute 
were easily accommodated in three or four 


196 


THE LED-IIORSE CLAIM. 


carriages. In the first of these sat Mrs. 
Denny. A prevalent theory of Conrath’s 
death was that there had been bad blood 
between the two young superintendents from 
other than business causes ; and Mrs. Denny 
enjoyed a temporary supremacy among the 
ladies of Conrath’s preference as the heroine 
of this rumor. Hilgard ’s fate relented toward 
him in this one instance, and spared him 
the knowledge of this romantic fiction of 
the camp, which joined his name with Mrs. 
Denny’s. 

The cemetery was a grim, untended spot, 
an acre of the primitive fir-forest, sloping 
westward toward the valley, and exposed to 
the winds that blew across from the snow- 
covered peaks. The fire and the axe had 
passed over it, and the nakedness of the land 
was left as the inheritance of that peaceful 
community which had pitched its low tents 
on the bleak slope. A few stumps and stark, 
blackened pine trunks, a few young, slight 
trees, the sole mourners of the forest, supple- 
mented the scant memorials raised to the 
human dead. Unpainted boards marked alike 
the graves of those who awaited at the hands 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 197 


of distant friends, removal to a more perma- 
nent resting-place, the graves of the poor and 
the unknown, and the graves of those, the 
place of whose rest was of less importance 
to the general public than its finality. The 
camp grave-yard, like the camp itself, was 
peripatetic. The city was at that time re- 
serving the money it might have spent on 
its adornment, in contemplation of its re- 
moval to another spot. 

The heavy, soft snow had sunk and melted 
under the high glare of the sun, and lay in 
patches, like linen spread to bleach ; offering 
a grotesque, irreverent suggestion that the 
dwellers in those sunken mounds might have 
risen in the night and washed their earth- 
stained cerements in readiness for the pend- 
ing order to “ move camp.” The funeral 
procession, invading this desolate enclosure, 
took nothing from its haggard loneliness. It 
was impossible to associate the place with 
human love and reverence, or even with 
humanity’s last, enduring rest. 

Conrath’s body was lowered into the alien 
soil. His final allotment of it was small, and 
was grudged by none. Here no locator en- 


198 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


croached upon his neighbor’s claim, and the 
original boundary lines were kept inviolate. 
A brief stillness fell upon the multitude, di- 
verse and disunited as the stones of a river 
bed, except in the wave of sentiment which 
had brought them there ; and then the words 
were spoken, of a common humility and a 
common hope. 

The militia company, drawn up by the side 
of the grave, fired a volley over it. The 
second volley scattered badly, and the crowd, 
recovering from its momentary reflectiveness, 
echoed the failure with jeers of derision. The 
mounted mourners had become exalted, dur- 
ing the ceremonies, to a pitch of solemn 
enthusiasm which could only vent itself in 
the racing of their horses back to the camp ; 
and the militia company reported at its cap- 
tain’s headquarters before nightfall, and drank 
to Conrath’s repose, in a keg of whiskey 
opened for the purpose. 

Hilgard had considered the spectacle of his 
victim’s last honors, from the sidewalk of the 
principal street. The moving crowd, keeping 
pace with the procession, shoved against him, 
and occasionally pointed at him as an object 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP . 199 


of interest only second to that concealed from 
public view in the flag-draped coffin. 

That night was Hilgard’s last in the camp. 
At two o’clock of the chill, wan morning, in 
company with Godfrey, he was on his way to 
the new railroad station, which had lately 
superseded the stage office. The empty streets 
were covered with a light, pure renewal of 
the previous snows. 

“ What a ghastly hour for a train to leave ! ” 
the Doctor said, as they walked shiver ingly 
the length of the platform, printing their 
progress on the untrodden snow. “We’re 
recording ourselves at a great rate on these 
sands of time. Time here is eternity in the 
rest of the world. The shipwrecked brother 
will have to hurry up if he wants to profit by 
our footprints.” 

A truck passed them, with Hilgard’s trunk 
piled among the others, eastward bound. 

“ You ’ll take all that’s left of my youth 
with you, my boy.” 

“ No, Doctor ; you are younger than I am 
now.” 

Godfrey stopped and looked earnestly at 
Hilgard. 


200 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“You’re morbid, George. You’re taking 
a bigger load on your shoulders than be- 
longs to you. Try to look at it simply, and 
remember that poor Con didn’t know how 
to live, anyway. He carried too much wick 
for his candle ; he never could have stood a 
draught. Fate has been kinder to him than 
to you.” 

“ Doctor, I cannot talk about it ! ” 

“ Well, you’d better. It’s better to handle 
a trouble pretty freely, and secularize it, so to 
speak, before it masters your common sense. 
I suspect you’re hiding a deeper hurt — I 
won’t touch it, boy ; only just let me say : 
Don’t think that everything ends here. If 
you spoke to her now, you spoke too soon.” 

“She hasn’t heard from her father yet,” 
Hilgard said after a pause. “ Is there no one 
to take care of her but that bedlam crew ? ” 
“She has heard — she heard to-day. Her 
father’s coming for her, and the minister’s 
wife has found her out. She’s a friendly 
little soul, with a lot of children.” And then 
he added, “ Remember, George, you can count 
on nature in the long run. I don’t mean to 
flatter you, but did you ever ask anything of 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP . 201 


a woman and want it very much, and not 
get it?” 

Hilgard flushed angrily. 

“ Do you call that flattering me ? It is 
not a question of women, and it ’s not open to 
discussion.” * 

“I’m done, boy — I’m done — only, just 
remember this : The worst thing that can 
happen to a man is to get some things, the 
best things, too easily.” 

u You ’ve been my friend in a place where 
I haven’t many,” Hilgard said, relenting. 

“ You’ve had plenty of my kind. I tried to 
be your friend once, in a way that would have 
made you furious if you had known, but I 
didn’t succeed.” 

“ I don’t know what you mean.” 

“I don’t suppose you do. It’s a pity I 
did n’t succeed. However — Well, take care 
of yourself, boy! My feet are confoundedly 
damp.” 

Hilgard looked after the stout, stooping fig- 
ure, shuffling away through the chilly streets, 
and the dull ache in his breast included older 
failures, and more hopeless ones, than his 
own. The world seemed full of them. 


202 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


As he turned he saw West, who had ridden 
Peggy down from the mine, and stood near 
the post where she was hitched, waiting for 
Hilgard’s recognition. 

Peggy’s toilet had been carefully attended 
to. The smoke from her silky sides rose in 
the cold air. It might have been the sickly 
gleam of the station lamps that gave West a 
pale, dragged look. 

Hilgard slipped his hand under Peggy’s 
mane, and patted her warm neck. 

“ You ’ll see that they take good care of 
her, West.” 

“I will, sir. Peggy and me ’ll leave the 
camp together.” 

“I don’t mean anything of that sort. We 
have n’t, either of us, any money to invest in 
sentiment.” 

“I know it, sir,” said West, turning red. 
“ But a man can fool himself with his own 
money, if he wants to. Peggy ’s all the Led- 
Horse I want! I’ll take her for my two 
months’ pay, if they’ll call it square!” 

“ You must n’t do it, West ! She isn’t worth 
half of it. I ’ve used her hard, poor old girl ! 
She was too light for my weight.” He slid 


THE HONORS OF THE CAMP. 203 


his hand down her fore leg, which she lifted 
obediently. “ Her feet are all banged up. 
She needs a six weeks’ run in the valley.” 

Peggy was smelling around Hilgard’s pock- 
ets. 

“Prospecting for sugar, Peggy? The su- 
gar’s in my other clothes. West, I wish you 
were going along.” 

“ I wish so, too, sir.” 

“If I. should find another job pretty soon, 
with decent pay, would you come with me ? 
1 don’t want to interfere with your chances 
here.” 

“ I ain’t taking any chances here,” said 
West, grimly. “They’ll be havin’ a new 
deal all round, when the next boss comes out. 
I ’m going to quit before I ’m kicked out.” 

“You’re just as well out of it. It’s an 
ugly camp. Gashwiler is not done with you.” 

“I expect not. Maybe I ain’t done with 
him.” 

“ You ’d better get out of it, West ! You’re 
too good a man to be fooling with that kind 
of thing.” 

“ Yes,” said West. “ They ’ve got a notion 
in this camp that fight ’s all there is of me ; 
but you know better than that, sir ! ” 


204 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“I should think I did. Well, look out for 
yourself ! ” 

They shook hands silently. 

As the train moved out of the depot, West 
stood with his arm across his saddle, his head 
hanging down. 

“ There ain’t a man on top o’ ground I ’d 
put up more on than him ; I would n’t wonder 
if he ’d know it some day,” he muttered to 
himself; and, remounting Peggy, he rode 
away, through the snow-glimmer, under the 
dark, starlit sky. 

Hilgard, looking from the car-window on 
the long grade descending toward the valley, 
saw the shrunken old moon crawl up above 
the notch of the Pass. A light glowed from 
the Led-Horse shaft-house, but the neighbor- 
ing light across the gulch was out. 


ON THE DOWN GRADE. 


205 


XII. 

ON THE DOWN GRADE. 

The glittering snows of the Range melted 
into gray, soft showers as the eastward-bound 
train reached the valleys at its foot. The 
valleys opened and widened until, like rivers 
entering the sea, they were lost in the effacing 
levels of the plain. 

At that season of dearth the brown plains 
of Colorado and Kansas were swept bare as 
threshing-floors, where the feet of wandering 
herds beat out the desert harvest, and the 
winds met at the winnowing, mocking the 
sterile crop and scattering it in wild eddies, 
mingled with the dust of the arid trails. 

In a single night of travel the naked, titanic 
plains were changed for the rich savannas of 
Eastern Kansas, green with miles of sprout- 
ing wheat. For eyes tired with dust-laden 
winds and glare of lofty snow-fields, there 
was rest in this breadth of fertile country, 


206 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


dimly seen through the rain-mist which was 
gathering and trickling against the car-win- 
dows. To Hilgard’s homesick gaze it looked 
like the “ lap of earth.” 

The rains continued. The deep, narrow 
runs that go winding and looping through 
the woods of Missouri were filling their dry, 
summer channels from the low clouds. It 
was bright, windy weather crossing the roll- 
ing prairies of Iowa and the level prairies of 
Illinois. Evening in Chicago was gray and 
chill with the lake fogs ; but morning in the 
valley of the Genesee was red with autumn 
woods, and the broad, low light of the sun 
shining through haze. 

The “ limited express” hurled itself into the 
stillness of the landscape, giving it a dizzy, 
panoramic movement ; the woods marched 
like processions with banners along the hori- 
zon ; fields of standing corn, barns, fences, 
villages, reeled past ; young girls in doorways, 
groups of school-children, or men at work 
in the fields, waved a greeting to the train, 
and were left behind; and, long after they 
had gone their way, the figures and gestures 
remained transfixed on the vision, like an 
instantaneous photograph. 


ON THE DOWN GRADE. 


207 


On that last day of Ills homeward jour- 
ney, Hilgard watched the yellow twilight 
reflected in the upper reaches of the Hudson. 
The train dashed past the lights of river- 
side hamlets and ferries ; past little fleets of 
sloops, creeping with the tide round a bend of 
the river, and lazy communities of canal-boats 
trailing behind the urgent propeller ; past coun- 
try-seats looking out from wooded knolls, and 
farm-houses sheltered in the hollows ; it came 
clanging into the dingy depots of the river 
cities. The familiar life roused him, like the 
pang of returning consciousness, from the 
dream-like succession of days and nights, set 
to the monotonous, rhythmic jar of the car- 
wheels pounding on the rails. 

He entered New York with the daily in- 
coming throng of summer tourists, return- 
ing from the sea, from the islands of the St. 
Lawrence, from the mountains and lakes, — 
from camping, yachting, hunting, and danc- 
ing. He registered his name at a hotel oppo- 
site one of those small, sunny parks where 
summer in the city lingers longest, and ap- 
peared duly before a meeting of the Board of 
Directors of the Led-Horse. The directors 


208 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


found the situation an unexpected one ; it was 
curious, it was even picturesque, and it im- 
plied an unhoped-for degree of prosperity in 
the future of the Led-Horse. Hilgard took 
his questioning very quietly. When the gen- 
tlemanly directors, finding, on reviewing the 
circumstances, that, in point of sentiment, a 
small deficit remained on their part, proposed 
its settlement with a check, Hilgard replied : — 

“ Gentlemen, you have paid me my salary 
as superintendent. I have simply been your 
superintendent, nothing more.’ , 

Hilgard had expected to lose no time on 
his return in looking up a new situation, and 
getting afield again ; but he had not been pre- 
pared to find that the story of the fight in the 
drift had preceded him. The adventure met 
him everywhere among his acquaintances. 
It excited a certain enforced admiration, but 
it impressed the Eastern business mind as 
something excessive ; as pitched not quite on 
the key of daily life. 

Hilgard had known little of his native city 
since his boyhood ; for at twenty he had gone 
to the Western frontier under the auspices of 
a government topographical survey. There 


ON THE DOWN GRADE. 


209 


were links of old acquaintanceship and of 
family that still held, through all his absences 
and wanderings, but he hesitated, in his sick 
and sore self-consciousness, from meeting fa- 
miliar faces and subjecting himself to friendly 
questioning. 

He thought he would go down to that 
quiet midland village where his half-brothers 
were at school. He had seen very little of 
them since their infancy, but they were en- 
deared to him, not only for the sake of his 
mother and theirs, but through grateful mem- 
ories of their father, who had been his model 
of manhood. Captain Norton’s heroic and 
untimely death at sea had been more of a 
conscious loss to his step-son than to his own 
baby-boys. The twice-widowed mother, whose 
beauty, if it had brought her more than the 
common share of love, had not saved her from 
more than an equivalent of sorrow, had not 
long survived this last blow. 

The thought of these two lads, and of their 
claim on his future, was, perhaps, the only one 
at this time that Hilgard could dwell upon in 
security from pain; and yet day after day 
found him still in the city. 

14 


210 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


A deadly weariness, like nothing he had 
known, an apathy, as of premature age, had 
crept into the marrow of his hones, and taken 
from him his native instinct of resistance. He 
often found himself shivering in the soft fall 
sunshine. His thoughts seemed to swoon in the 
vacuum of his mind. He wondered indiffer- 
ently if he could be ill ; he had never counted 
illness among the chances of his life, but he 
would have welcomed it, if he could have 
believed it would come quickly and forestall 
all future chances. 

One evening, before the level sunset light 
had faded from the house-fronts, he was sit- 
ting on one of the benches in the little park } 
with his face turned away from the passers 
along the walks. He was meditating on that 
balance-sheet of sentiment between himself 
and the Led-Horse, and reviewing the events 
of the summer with a sickening doubt of his 
own action. People who paused to take a seat 
on the bench beside him, stared at him intently 
and passed on. Beautiful women and young 
girls, rustling by in rich fall costumes, looked 
back at him and whispered together. Little 
children, swinging from their nurse’s hands, 


ON THE DOWN GRADE. 


211 


regarded him curiously ; the gaunt shadows of 
the leafless trees that at noon were short on the 
asphalt walks, wheeled and lengthened softly 
over the turf. The sun dropped below the 
roofs; the shadows were diffused, and the 
after-glow mounted to the rows of upper- 
windpws fronting the square. Gray twilight 
came down, and the myriad gas-jets started 
into life through all the purple vistas of 
streets, rising to meet the long, bright lanes 
of sky. A four-year-old child, loitering behind 
a white-capped maid, paused beside Hilgard’s 
bench and laid a hand on his knee. 

“ What is the matter ? Why don’t you go 
home? ” 

The childish treble pierced Hilgard’s dull 
mood, but he had no answer for the question. 
The maid returned in angry haste and hur- 
ried the child away. 

Hilgard got upon his feet, stung by this 
involuntary tribute to his condition. Had he 
then become an object of such public com- 
miseration that even the babes pitied him, 
and counselled him out of their wisdom of 
the nursery ? He left the park and crossed 
the square, with an access of energy in his 


212 


THE LED-HOUSE CLAIM. 


step ; but in the warm, gas-lit wilderness of 
the hotel, his strength flagged suddenly. The 
elevator was crowded with ladies, in street 
toilets, ascending to their rooms. Hilgard 
noticed, with vague surprise, that the tremu- 
lous upward motion made him giddy. In less 
than a moment he reached the floor on which 
his room was ; but to him it seemed he had 
been standing a long time in the dimly lighted, 
perfumed cell, with his eyes fixed on a reflec- 
tion of the quivering chandelier in the polished 
panel opposite, while women, whose draperies 
crushed against him, talked to each other in 
far-away voices, like those of a dream. He 
staggered as he stepped into the corridor, 
and apologized mechanically to a lady whom 
he had jostled. 

She appeared to be a newly arrived traveller, 
waiting for the call-boy with her hand-luggage 
to show her to her room. She had a sensi- 
tive face, of a type we instinctively refer to 
pictures of a by-gone generation of faces. She 
looked at Hilgard earnestly, as he lifted his 
hat and muttered his apology; and with a 
slight, nervous blush, appealed to him in her 
momentary annoyance. 


ON THE DOWN GRADE. 


213 


“ I think I have mistaken the floor my 
room is on. The boy was to meet me at the 
elevator with my things and show me to 
fifty-six.” 

“ Fifty-six is on this floor, madam, — I am 
going that way.” 

The lady hesitated, as if she felt under some 
obligation to wait for the call-boy, and then 
followed Hilgard along the hall. He tried to 
keep the number in his mind ; the succession 
of white doors, with gilded numerals on them, 
swam before his eyes; the hall seemed end- 
less, and the floor to rise and sink under his 
feet like the deck of a ship. He stopped, and 
steadied himself against the wall. 

“ Why, here it is ! thank you very much ! ” 
the lady said, in a tone of relief. At that mo- 
ment a door on the opposite side of the hall 
unclosed, and the shock of a sudden heart- 
breaking recognition roused Hilgard like a 
blow in the face. Cecil Conratli had opened 
the door of fifty-six, and stood the width olthe 
corridor away from him, looking into his face 
with the blank gaze of a stranger. 

The little lady made an exclamatory rush 
forward, and the door was shut. Hilgard 


214 


THE LED-IIORSE CLAIM. 


stood a moment staring at the number out- 
side it, and then went to his own room. He 
made an effort to light the gas, groped about 
helplessly, and sank down in a chair, the 
blood heavily surging in his veins. It ebbed 
wave by wave, and his life seemed ebbing 
with it, in slower and slower pulsations. 

The servant, coming in a few minutes later 
with a pitcher of ice-water, found him, in the 
dim light that streamed into the room from 
the transom, lying back in his chair, white 
and senseless. 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 


215 


XIII. 

NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 

That part of Iris journey to the mountain 
camp which had reference to his daughter, 
had not given Mr. Conrath much uneasiness 
beforehand. He thought of her as little more 
than a child, to be petted into forgetfulness 
of the shock she had suffered. He did not 
know how fully Cecil might be acquainted 
with the circumstances of her brother’s death, 
and he avoided any allusion to the subject ; 
at the same time he resented her unyouthful 
silence, and the absence of all appeal on her 
part to the paternal refuge. 

Cecil was not' aware of the reproachful power 
of her grief. The effort by which she had 
set every strained and quivering nerve to its 
silent endurance had left her no strength for 
self-analysis or for comprehension of another’s 
phases of feeling. As for help in her trial, she 
would sooner have asked the prayers of the 




216 THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 

church for one whose burden was heavier 
than she could bear, than have appealed to 
that automatic relation which was all she had 
ever known of fatherhood. 

When Mr. Conrath proposed to find a suit- 
able escort for her on her homeward journey, 
and to remain himself a week longer in the 
camp, for the purpose of investigating an in- 
terest his son was said to have had in some 
presumably valuable, though undeveloped, 
mining properties, Cecil gave a listless assent. 
It was arranged that she should travel in 
company with a lady experienced in railway 
journeys, opportunely going east, as far as 
Chicago, and be met in New York by her 
mother’s sister, Miss Esther Hartwell. At 
the hotel selected by Mr. Conrath they were 
to await his return and his subsequent plans 
for Cecil’s future home. 

Home ! — the very word seemed to mock 
the fragmentary, wistful existence which had 
been her life since early childhood. 

Mr. Conr’ath’s enforced stay in the camp was 
prolonged from day to day, while Miss Esther 
silently repined at her life of idleness, with her 
fall sewing yet undone, in a city full of men 



NUMBER FIFTY-TWO . 217 

and women, all overworking or overplaying — 
while Cecil listened to every footstep along 
the hall, and paled or flushed expectantly, 
growing daily more restless with the haunting 
thought of Hilgard near, yet never seen. 

Ten days had passed, and Hilgard had 
been sinking deeper, day by day, in that 
rift of oblivion into which he had fallen. 
The tide of movement in the city set south- 
ward in the morning and northward at night, 
through the shrill echoing channels of its 
streets. There were inquirers for him among 
Hilgard’s acquaintances, but they answered 
each other that he had gone out of town, 
probably, on that visit to his brothers, which 
he had mentioned among his earliest inten- 
tions. He lay, drifting fast toward the crisis 
of his strength. 

“ Cecil, do you know we have a case of 
fever in our hall ? ” 

Miss Esther had gathered the information 
from scraps of talk in the elevator during the 
day’s ascendings and descendings, and con- 
firmed it through the medium of one of the 
chamber-maids. u It is only two doors from 


218 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


us, — fifty-two. No one comes to see him, 
Ellen says, except the Doctor ; and he has a 
hired nurse.” 

Miss Esther Hartwell was from the country, 
and classed hired nurses with baker’s bread 
and shop-made underclothing, and other des- 
olations which properly belonged with the 
homeless existence of people who lived in 
hotels and boarding-houses. 

“ It ’s been running more than a week, 
now,” Miss Esther continued ; “ they say he 
has typhoid symptoms, if it isn’t the real 
thing. It seems as if I could n’t sit here, day 
after day, with my hands folded ! ” 

Miss Esther was not literally sitting with 
her hands .folded ; on the contrary, her active 
habits were asserting themselves on a circuit 
of the room, for the purpose of softly dispers- 
ing, with a hare’s-foot brush, the faint gray 
dust-films which had settled on the ornaments 
and carvings. The puffs of hair laid against 
her temples looked as if a faint gray film had 
settled on them too, but it had come grad- 
ually, and would not be brushed away until 
the finger of time should obliterate the gentle 
picture, of which it was now an essential part. 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 


219 


It would be as impossible to think of Miss 
Esther without her soft, prim side-puffs, as 
without her gold eyeglasses, with their slen- 
der, worn rims, or the delicate depressions 
around her mouth and nostrils. 

Cecil was standing at the window, with her 
back to her aunt, her elbows resting on the 
low sash, her head bowed between her hands 
until her forehead touched the cool window- 
pane. 

Miss Esther was accustomed to Cecil’s long 
silences ; she thought the girl brooded too 
much, but she remembered her own youth, 
and youth’s passionate preoccupation with its 
own troubles. She had not expected from 
Cecil much demonstration of interest in that 
forlorn sick-room, which appealed so strongly 
to her own experienced sympathies. 

“ I ’ve known cases,” Miss Esther meditated, 
aloud, “ where they slipped away just at the 
turn, for want of some one who would n’t 
give up hope. There are always plenty who 
will say , 4 Oh, let him rest — let him draw his 
last breath in peace ! ’ but then is the time not 
to think of rest.” 

Miss Esther shut the brush away in the 


220 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


drawer of a side-table, and stood with her 
back against it, still wrestling with the help- 
ful impulse, of which she was half ashamed, 
as we are apt to be of gratuitous impulses 
of that kind. Her eyeglass fell, and tinkled 
softly against the buttons of her dress. 

“ Have you thought of offering to help nurse 
him, Aunt Esther ? ” Cecil asked. 

“ Anywhere but here I should n’t stop to 
think about it, — I should go right in ! ” Miss 
Esther replied with energy. “ After all, sup- 
pose he is a stranger,” she argued with her 
own doubts, — “he’s our neighbor in One 
sense. I ’m ashamed to pass that door, and 
never even ask if there is anything I can do.” 

Cecil came and stood beside Miss Esther, 
half-embracing her, and crushing her firm 
young cheek, in which a sympathetic glow 
had begun to brighten, against Miss Esther’s 
side-combs. 

“ You are good enough to do things you 
feel like doing, without stopping to think. 
You would do it at Little Rest?” 

“ At Little Rest ! ” Miss Esther repeated, — 
“this isn’t much like Little Rest ! Here, it 
is the first law for every one to mind his ow r n 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 


221 


business. I can’t get it out of my mind, Cecil, 
that lie is the same young man I met in the 
hall the night I came. He looked so strange ! 
I said to myself then, either he ’s stricken with 
some sickness or — ” (Cecil looked at her aunt 
fixedly, while the arrested blush faded from her 
face) — “ or else he ’s been drinking ! ” Miss 
Esther concluded, in an undertone, burdened 
by the gravity of this last hypothesis. 

“ He might have been sick or dying, but 
he was not that ! ” Cecil said. She stood be- 
fore Miss Esther, and put out her hands with 
a pleading gesture. 

“ Will you go to him now! Don’t stop to 
think any longer. What does it matter where 
we are? Ah — go!” she entreated in her 
sudden unaccountable excitement. 

“ Why, Cecil, do you care so much ? ” Miss 
Esther was bewildered by the girl’s mood, but 
she had ever a gentle construction for all 
moods but her own, and found in this only 
an occasion for self-reproach. She took the 
young girl into her arms and let the convulsed 
face hide itself against her shoulder. 

“Your heart is sore, poor child; too sore 
to bear anybody’s pain ! I have n’t under- 


'222 


THE LED-IIORSE CLAIM. 


stood you; I thought you were wrapped up 
in your own trouble ! ” 

“ This — this is my trouble ! ” Cecil con- 
fessed, helplessly. 

“ Don’t make too much of it, dear. I ’m 
sorry I told you. After all, he is a stranger ! ” 

“ I hope he is ; but, you must find out his 
name ! ” 

Miss Esther had left the room and arrived 
at the neighboring door of number fifty-two, 
scarcely conscious of the steps which had 
taken her there ; but once inside that door, 
face to face with an extremity of need, which 
she recognized at a glance, her perturbation 
was stilled by that active sense of power the 
true nurse feels in the presence of such need. 

On her return to her own room, an hour 
later, she found Cecil lying on the bed, her 
eyes shut, her clasped hands close huddled 
beneath her chin. 

Miss Esther softly drew up the coverlet 
over the motionless figure. 

“ I ’m not asleep,” Cecil said, opening her 
eyes. She kept them on Miss Esther’s face, 
intently searching its expression. “ What is 
his name ? ” she asked. 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO . 


223 


An intuition had come to Miss Esther dur- 
ing her absence which made it hard for her to 
answer. She sat down by the bed and laid 
her head by Cecil’s on the pillow. The girl 
did not repeat her question, hut her hand 
wandered with a beseeching touch toward the 
face beside her own. Miss Esther took the 
hand and held it fast while she said, in 
the same hushed voice she had used in the 
sick-room, — 

“ It is a strange thing. He is that — 
Hilgard ! ” 

The imprisoned hand closed quickly within 
her own and then relaxed. Cecil turned her 
face away. 

“ Did you know him, Cecil ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Child, what can there be between him 
and Harry Conrath’s sister ? ” 

“Nothing; but I may wish him not to 
die.” 

Cecil lay, dull-eyed and silent, while Miss 
Esther stroked her unresponsive hand. Sud- 
denly she withdrew it, and, rising on her elbow 
in the bed, demanded, — 

“ What have you heard about him ? ” 


224 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ I have heard only what your father wrote 
me.” 

“ My father will never know the whole 
story ; he knows — only one cruel thing ! ” 

Cecil sank back on her pillow again, press- 
ing her hands hard over her eyes. 

“ It is no use ! I could never make you 
understand — no one will ever understand ! 
Oh, why are men put in such places?” 

She tossed her arms wide apart upon the 
bed, turning a look of suffering past all con- 
cealment upon the woman who was nearest to 
her. 

“ I love him,” she whispered, in all that was 
left of her choked utterance. “ I could not 
take happiness from him — but now — now I 
may go to him ! Now I can be merciful.” 

“Hush, my poor child! Mercy is not in 
your hands,” Miss Esther said. “ He is very 
young — he is very sick,” she added, simply, 
as if in further extenuation. 

“ But he was not to blame ! ” Cecil started 
up again, and slipped from the bed to the 
floor, beginning, with trembling hands, in- 
stinctively to coil up her loosened braids. 
“ I am going to him. It cannot do any harm. 


N UMBER FIF TV- T WO. 


225 


He shall know — ” She stopped, arrested by 
a new and sickening doubt. “ Aunt Esther, 
have you told me all ? ” 

“ My dear, there is not much to tell. He 
is very low. You must not expect him to 
know you. It is the same to him who comes 
or goes.” 

Cecil received this blow in silence. She 
wavered in restless circles* like a broken- 
winged bird, around the room, and settled 
despairingly at last at Miss Esther’s knee. 

“ You will help him just the same, now 
you know who he is ? ” 

44 Help him ? Why, Cecil, what kind of a 
woman do you think I am ? ” 

“ Oh, I know ! It is only I who can do such 
things. I let him go away that night without 
a sign. You saw he needed help. It was 
cruel to shut the door in his face.” 

44 Why, if you mean that night in the hall, 
/shut the door, Cecil. I remember — ” 

44 Won’t you go back to him now ?” Cecil 
interrupted. 44 You have been a long time 
away. It will do no good for me to go, but I 
must — I must see him ! ” 

Miss Esther yielded reluctantly to Cecil’s 
15 


226 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


desire. The relation between Hilgard and 
her niece seemed too unreal, and, under the 
late circumstances, too unnatural to be ad- 
mitted. Miss Esther, as Cecil had guessed, 
only knew concerning Hilgard the one fact 
of the fatal conjunction of his name with that 
of her nephew. Mr. Conrath had written 
only enough to forestall rumor. He had 
neither defended his son nor accused Hilgard, 
but the simple fact of his death left Conrath 
master of sympathies that were already his by 
the tie of kinship, and had never been alien- 
ated by intimate knowledge of his character. 

But Cecil’s grief was not to be gainsaid. 
It was the more impressive from the silence 
that had preceded this sudden outburst of its 
smothered pain. 

The two women went together along the 
corridor to the door of the sick-room. Miss 
Esther met the nurse, who admitted them 
with a few words of explanation, while Cecil, 
heeding no one, stared with dread into the 
gloom of the cool, shaded room. 

The tenant of fifty-two lay sunk on a white, 
thinly-clad bed, the lines of his long form 
showing beneath the folds of the coverlid, 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 


227 


like a carved effigy on a tomb. One hand, 
stretched by his side, stirred slightly, but the 
profile outlined against the swell of the pillow 
was as immobile as a death-mask. Cecil went 
to him and cowered on the floor beside him, 
sparing her shrinking sight not one detail of 
the change. She crept close to the bed and 
laid her white cheek in the hollow of his dry, 
wasted hand. Her breath came in hard, tear- 
less sobs. She gazed within the parted lids, 
where a dull, sightless glimmer remained. 
There was no recognition ; no need for her 
to shrink where there was no importunity ; to 
resist where argument and appeal had ceased. 
His estate, now, was less than her own. The 
ruined tenement which had been his house of 
life was void and silent, welcoming no one, 
disputing no intrusion. 

Though she had judged and sentenced him, 
she had held him blameless. She worshipped 
the steadfastness with which he had turned 
back to his barren post of duty in the face of 
a young man’s last temptation. Who would 
ever understand, in the world of peace and 
order, that wild summons which had forced 
an instant’s choice upon him! and where 


2-28 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


would peace and order be found, if there were 
no men to obey when such a summons came ! 
And she had made him feel that they were 
forever aliens by this deed. 

“ My brother,” she whispered, “ my two 
brothers ! God judge between you, and let me 
call you both mine ! ” 

A small clock on the mantel ticked breath- 
lessly, as if hurrying on the moments to the 
long silence on the threshold of which she 
knelt. In that sudden collapse of hope which 
youth can know, she felt that he was already 
gone. She could not conceive that a change 
so terrible might not be final. 

Miss Esther went to her and with gentle 
insistence drew her away. At the door Cecil 
looked back as one who has laid a last flower 
on the bosom of the dead. 

Miss Esther watched for the Doctor’s even- 
ing visit, and, when his examination of the 
patient was over, she proffered her help for 
the night-watch in a low-voiced conversation 
with him outside the sick-room door. Her 
quaint earnestness was mingled with a prac- 
tical efficiency which the Doctor recognized 
and readily availed himself of. At the close 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO, 


229 


of their talk he alluded to the young lady 
visitor of whom the nurse had told him. 

“ A friend of the patient’s ? ” he asked. 

“ She is my niece, Doctor,” Miss Esther 
replied. The Doctor did not fail to note the 
evasion and her flush of embarrassment. 

“The patient is a relative of yours, did I 
understand you to say, or of your niece ? ” 

“ He is not a relative, Doctor ; I have no 
excuse for offering my help — ” 

“Except the best of excuses, madam, — 
- that your help is needed. Mrs. Wren inferred 
that our patient and the young lady were not 
strangers to each other ; does she propose to 
offer her assistance, too ? ” 

“ No, Doctor, — the patient is not a stran- 
ger to us, but my niece has no idea of helping 
to nurse him.” 

“ Well, you know, it might n’t be altogether 
a bad idea. There might be circumstances 
that would make her presence, at least, a 
most fortunate thing for the case. I confess 
I counted on more resistance on the patient’s 
part to the progress of the disease. There 
would - be no need for volunteers by this time, 
if the case had developed as I expected. With 


230 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. * 


his physique and at his age I didn’t antici- 
pate the least trouble. I ’m inclined to think 
there has been some shock or strain that ’s 
telling against him now. The fact is, it 
struck me from the first that he was n’t par- 
ticularly anxious to get well.” 

Miss Esther was silent a moment, and then, 
as the Doctor appeared to wait for her to 
speak, she said : — 

“ From what I know of him, I should n’t 
think he would be.” 

“ But why should n’t he ? As far as one 
can judge by the outside of a man, he is well 
fitted to live.” 

“ Oh, Doctor, there has been trouble ! ” 
Miss Esther admitted, desperately. 

“ I supposed so. He appears to have some- 
thing on his mind. It ’s often a very obstinate 
feature — the mind, you know. Mrs. Wren 
said the young lady appeared to be a good 
deal affected by the patient’s condition. Was 
it with a particular interest in him she came 
in to see him ? It ’s — well — a little unusual, 
you know, unless there ’s some previous rela- 
tion. This trouble you speak of — is it a com- 
mon trouble — I mean a mutual trouble ? ” 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 231 

“ Yes, Doctor,” Miss Esther replied, blush- 
ing with a sense of the responsibility imposed 
upon her. “ It is partly mutual — that is — 
I ’m not really in her confidence, but he is 
a great deal to her. I am sure of that. It 
is a shock to her to see him like this. I 
don’t know what influence she may have over 
him — ” 

The Doctor smiled, as if to lighten Miss 
Esther’s sense of the awfulness of her dis- 
closure. 

“ Those things are often reciprocal, you 
know, Madam. Is your niece’s name Cecil, 
by the way ? ” 

Miss Esther assented in surprise. 

“ The patient has mentioned that name. 
He wanders a little at times — can’t get the 
number fifty-six out of his mind.” The Doc- 
tor glanced casually up at the door opposite. 

“ That is the number of our room,” Miss 
Esther explained. 

“ Well, Madam, if there is no serious ob- 
jection, I wish the patient could see your 
niece, quietly, you know, when he seems to 
be conscious. It may be another chance in 
his favor.” 


232 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


“I don’t see what my niece can do for 
him, Doctor — except deceive him,” said Miss 
Esther, with shrinking conscientiousness. 

“ Our business, Madam, is to get him well. 
He must take care of himself afterward.” 

About nine o’clock Miss Esther began her 
night toilet in preparation for watching in- 
stead of sleeping. She took out her tortoise- 
shell side-combs and rolled up her puffs into 
little flat rings against her temples and fas- 
tened each with a hair-pin. She substituted 
a warm wrapper for her rustling dress, and 
drew on a pair of noiseless knitted shoes. 
She wound her watch, and gave it a little 
shake before trusting to its good faith ; then, 
in the silence of her own room, she murmured 
to herself the first verses of the psalm begin- 
ning: “Except the Lord build the house, 
they labor in vain that build it; except the 
Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but 
in vain.” And, in the familiar words, she 
commended her labors of the night to the 
source of all her modest courage. 

There was one more duty to perform. She 
went to the bed where Cecil lay in a stupor 
of hopeless grief. 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 


233 


“ Cecil, my dear, the Doctor thinks we may 
need your help. Not to-night, perhaps, but 
you must be ready. You must not go to bed 
without food, if it ’s only a glass of milk. 
And you need not waste your strength mourn- 
ing for that young man while he is living. 
Better save it to help him keep alive ! ” 

Miss Esther had seldom spoken to better 
purpose, but she did not wait to see the effect 
of her words. 

Morning, when it came, found the watchers 
hopeful. 

Limp as sea-weed forsaken by the tide, 
Hilgard lay waiting for the returning wave of 
life to uplift and outspread the draggled fila- 
ments of his consciousness. The tide was 
creeping back ; at dawn it floated him off 
into a sleep like that of a new-born babe, 
from which he woke scarcely less weak than 
one, to rest his eyes on the face of Cecil 
Conrath. 

During his waking hours, all that first day 
of hope, his large-eyed gaze followed her with 
a mute surmise. She was always silent, but 
there was a mysterious joy in her face which 
puzzled him; he could not connect it with 


234 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


himself. The appeal in his eyes grew sharper 
with his strengthening pulse, until, wearied 
with this fair, unanswering apparition of a 
forbidden hope, he turned away from it, and 
tears of baffled weakness stole from under his 
closed lids. Cecil laid her cool touch upon 
his wrist, and held it there until he turned 
his head toward her again, and, lifting his 
eyes, faintly formed the words, — 

“ Why did you wish me to live ? ” 

She withdrew her hand, but steadily meet- 
ing his eyes, with that primal question in 
them, answered, — 

“ Because I could not die, too.” 

He continued to gaze at her, as if ponder- 
ing her words, and trying if their meaning 
would stretch to the limit of his reviving 
longing. Cecil bent her head low, to hide 
the wild-rose color that bloomed suddenly in 
her cheeks. 

“ You are going to get well, for my sake,” 
she said. 

This was Cecil’s deception. 

No renunciation could have been quieter or 
more absolute in intention than hers, when 
she resolved that the way should not be left 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO . 


235 


open for Hilgard’s love to follow her when 
she left him again. 

Her father returned, and robbed her meek 
sacrifice of its dignity by making it no longer 
voluntary. 

Mr. Conrath had no sympathy with any form 
of practical Christianity which took the women 
of his family into the sick-rooms of pilgrims 
and strangers. He found an absolute incom- 
patibility between Miss Esther’s spirit of pro- 
miscuous helpfulness and her chaperonage of 
his daughter. But, when the name of the 
patient transpired, Mr. Conrath permitted 
himself a vigorous use of language in charac- 
terizing this feminine crusade. He was under 
no illusions as to the part his son had taken 
in the collision between the Led-Horse and 
the Shoshone ; the facts made it undeniably 
hard for Conrath’s father to be magnanimous, 
since he was scarcely in a position to forgive 
Hilgard for defending the trust in his keeping 
from his son’s rapacity ; but he did not pro- 
pose that his daughter should be the hostage 
of his future relations with the knight of the 
Led-Horse. 

Cecil was at once called upon to decide be- 


236 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


tween two alternatives, either of which would 
remove her from her undesirable proximity. 
The choice lay between Havana and her step- 
mother’s company, and her grandmother Hart- 
well’s house at Little Rest. Without hesita- 
tion, Cecil chose to go down into the country 
with Miss Esther to Little Rest. 

She doubted long, on the eve of her depart- 
ure, — watching the night through, in weary 
tossings, — whether to go away without a 
sign, or trust herself to one last expression of 
her love to soften the fact of her desertion. 

When Hilgard awoke the next day from 
one of his long, restoring sleeps, a familiar 
perfume stole luxuriously upon his languid 
senses. The nurse brought to his bedside a 
bunch of long-stemmed, heavy-headed roses, 
and a note which had lain neighbor to them 
long enough to borrow a hint of their fra- 
grance. But it carried its owm sting, keener 
than the sharpest of their healthy thorns. 
It was hastily written in pencil, in the hand 
Hilgard had seen once before, when Cecil had 
bidden him to that forlorn tryst in the gulch. 

The words of the note had been the result 
of Cecil’s native necessity to be honest. “ If 


NUMBER FIFTY-TWO. 237 

it does harm,” she had said to herself, worn 
out with self-conflict, “ I cannot help it. I 
will give up everything, but he shall know 
that I love him.” She wrote : — 

“ My father has returned, and we leave 
town to-day. You must get well. I shall 
know, though I never see you, that your life 
will justify my love and faith. You need not 
try to find me. We are not for each other in 
this world.” 

Cecil’s love had not enlightened her very 
deeply concerning the character of her lover, 
if she could imagine him restored to what he 
had been when she had first seen him, and 
yet passive under her gentle proscription. It 
served, however, as the tonic which his will 
required. It stung him into a passionate re- 
solve to get control once more of that good 
servant, his body, with which he had so lately 
been willing to part company. 


238 


THE LED-11 OR SE CLAIM . 


XIY. 

LITTLE REST. 

“ Why was it called ‘ Little Rest ’? ” Cecil 
asked, as the carriage slowly climbed the 
hill from the station. She had known the 
name since childhood, but its familiarity had 
dulled her ear to its meaning, which struck 
her now for the first time. 

“ It was a half-way stopping place for the 
stages on the old post road,” Miss Esther 
replied. “ They changed horses at Sullivan, 
two miles on. This long hill was hard for 
the tired horses; they used to stop at the 
foot of the first rise to water and breathe 
them a little. First there was a blacksmith’s 
shop, and a box on the side of the big elm 
for letters and papers ; then there was a 
tavern called 4 The Little Rest.’ ” 

Cecil softly repeated the name to herself. 
The horses dropped into a steady, hard-pulling 
walk, after their first spurt up the long, steep 


LITTLE REST . 


239 


grade, which was broken at intervals by shal- 
low, transverse hollows to lead off the water. 

The Hartwell house stood at the end of a 
broad, grass-grown lane which joined the 
main road at the top of the hill. Cecil’s 
memories of her grandmother’s house went 
back when she was just tall enough to see her 
face, distorted in miniature reflection, in the 
polished brass door-knobs ; when, to her small 
stride, the meadow-grass in June was a trop- 
ical jungle, and a seat among the low apple- 
tree boughs in the orchard had seemed from 
the ground a perilous adventure. 

In those days she had found it a long 
walk from the white-painted gate-posts up 
the straight drive to the high-pillared porch. 
The house had been built during the white 
wooden temple period of domestic architect- 
ure, which belonged to the early eighteen 
hundreds. Its formal lines were repeated in 
those of the leafless locust-trees, facing each 
other, on either side of the drive, in a 
stately expectancy — as of the arrival of some 
guest who never came, or the passing of 
bridal carriages, or a funeral procession from 
the white-panelled front-door beneath the 


240 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


porch. This fancy occurred to Cecil looking 
from the window of the hack, which had 
stopped before the closed gate. The driver 
called to a man who was raking the dead 
leaves into heaps upon the withered grass 
of the door-yard. He was an elderly man, 
and he came deliberately, first hooking his 
rake in the low boughs of a tree. He put 
his shoulder under the top bar of the gate 
and lifted it on its hinges, before swinging 
it open. As the carriage passed through, 
he stood aside and nodded silently in response 
to Miss Esther’s greeting. 

The years since Cecil had seen them last 
had thinned the ranks of the locusts. Here 
and there a comrade had dropped out of 
line ; the loss of their close-set, plumy foliage 
suffered the amputation of limbs to be seen. 
A few faded leaves clung to the boughs, or 
drifted downward in the still air, falling as 
light as the first snow-flakes would soon fall 
on the shrunken turf. The rose-bushes in 
the beds beneath the front windows were 
swathed in straw, and bowed with their 
heads to the earth, and the cords which had 
sustained their blossoming sprays in summer, 


LITTLE REST. 


241 


hung slack and rain-bleached against the side 
of the house. 

Miss Esther straightened the door-mat with 
her foot, before entering. She did not knock, 
but the heavy door stuck slightly, and opened 
with a jar which set the brass knocker’s teeth 
a-chattering. 

The interior of the hall was darkened by 
faded green silk shades drawn down over the 
side-lights. The slender mahogany stair-rail 
made a square turn at the landing, and, con- 
tinuing upward, caught a strong gleam of 
pure white light from an uncurtained window 
above. A tall closet opened on the landing. 
Cecil remembered how her brother had been 
wont to conceal himself there and spring out 
upon her unawares, on her toilsome journeys 
up and down the staircase, with a doll under 
each arm, and a doll’s wardrobe in a broken 
bandbox in her hands. She had never, as 
a child, been able to pass that closet with- 
out thrills of acute terror; even when the 
doors stood ajar, the long, dark garments 
hanging within had been invested to her imagi- 
nation with the mystery of which they were 
the sole proprietors. 


16 


242 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


Martha, the respectable “ help,” warned by 
the involuntary noise of their entrance, met 
them at the door of the back parlor, and in- 
formed them that Mrs. Hartwell was in her 
own room dressing after her afternoon nap. 
She looked deliberately and curiously at Cecil, 
glanced at the hard-coal fire to see if it re- 
quired mending, asked Miss Esther some 
commonplace question about their journey, 
and then retired to *the region of the kitchen. 

The two women, left alone, were silent ; 
Cecil gazed about her, taking in the details 
of the room, with shocks of recollection, and 
Miss Esther followed wistfully the expression 
of her face. The presence of a young girl 
in the house made her realize its subdued life 
and remoteness, and the lapse of time since 
her own girlhood. 

A slow, heavy step was heard moving about 
overhead. 

“ I will go up and see mother,” Miss Esther 
said, “ and see if your room is ready.” 

Cecil turned toward her aunt with a quick, 
affectionate gesture. 

“ Everything is just as it used to be — only 
then I did not know how lovely it was ! -If 
you only knew how different it is ! ” 


LITTLE REST. 


243 


“ Different ? ” 

“ From other places I have known.” 

“ Ah, my dear, if you had only come to us 
last summer ! ” 

Cecil did not echo this wish; she could 
hardly have told why. She had put off her 
hat and wraps, and knelt before the fire as 
she had often knelt in the glow of the great 
stone chimney of the Shoshone cabin. 

“ I must be content ! ” she adjured her fail- 
ing heart, on the threshold of this new life of 
peace. 

There was a rustle of thin silk behind her, 
as the door opened and her grandmother en- 
tered. She greeted Cecil very quietly, almost 
coldly, and, to her exquisite relief, made no 
allusion to the circumstances connected with 
her present visit to Little Rest. She took the 
chair on the opposite side of the fire, rocking 
gently, while her eyes dwelt on Cecil’s face 
with a prolonged and retrospective gaze. Her 
white, withered hands, with the purplish veins 
showing on their backs, were crossed over 
her pocket handkerchief, and rested on the 
ample slope which the folds of her black satin 
apron took in their descent toward her lap. 


244 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


Clear white muslin bands encircled her 
wrists. 

The placid figure, the creak of the chair in 
its brief oscillations, the tinkle of a coal fall- 
ing on the iron pan beneath the grate, had 
for Cecil a fascinating, dreamy familiarity. 
In the plain slab of black marble which 
crossed the chimney-piece, there was a darkly 
reflected picture of the room, in the fading 
light. Miss Esther was laying the cloth for 
tea, and placing the gilt china and the thin, 
bent-edged silver tea-service in order. As a 
child, Cecil had often watched this same 
picture from her seat on the embroidered 
footstool, which was decorated with a pink- 
eyed lamb, whose outlines, year by year, be- 
came more confused with the green and buff 
landscape in which its feet were set. Even 
the strip of orange-colored sky showing be- 
hind the thin woods on the hill, looked in 
through the window with a friendly light. 
Her childhood seemed waiting, with gentle, 
appealing touches of memory, to heal the 
wounds that womanhood had given her. 

When Mrs. Hartwell spoke to Cecil of her 
brother, it was always of the little boy she 


LITTLE REST. 


. 245 


had known long ago. The events of his life 
subsequent to that time she ignored, as if he 
had died in childhood. Cecil sometimes won- 
dered at this silence, but she accepted it, and 
was unspeakably grateful for it. It was a 
silence which covered more than the proud 
old heart would have permitted any one to 
guess. Grandmamma Hartwell had been en- 
lightened in various ways as to Harry Con- 
rath’s development, since the days of his 
childish sovereignty over the household at 
Little Rest. As a trifling incident of this 
development, he had borrowed sums of money 
of her from time to time, making little filial 
journeys down into the country for that 
purpose. Miss Esther had often recalled 
these visits with the pathetic appreciation 
with which elderly retired gentlewomen dwell 
upon the disinterested attentions of their 
young male relatives. 

Mrs. Hartwell had received the news of her 
grandson’s death with outward composure, 
but for many days she had been strangely 
restless. She had seemed more heavy and 
silent since that time Only once had she 
alluded to the family grief. This was on the 


246 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


evening before Miss Esther’s journey to New 
York to meet Cecil. Miss Esther had come 
into her mother’s room to cover her fire and 
arrange her for the night. The old lady was 
sitting up in bed in her nightcap, with a 
loose, wadded silk sack over her night-dress. 
She seemed nervous, and watched Miss 
Esther’s movements with impatience. 

“ Why don’t you let Martha attend to the 
fire ? She does it perfectly well. What is 
the use of making your hands rough for 
nothing at all except a fancy that I ’m more 
comfortable for it. I ’m not. I can’t bear to 
see you on your knees before that grate.” 

“ Martha can do it when I ’m away,” Miss 
Esther replied, mildly. 

When she came to the bedside to say good- 
night, her mother detained her by the hand. 

“ Sit down a minute, Essie. Put that 
shawl around you.” Mrs. Hartwell did not 
speak again, immediately*. She was rolling up 
her cap-string, and her fingers were slightly 
tremulous. “ I don’t suppose he would let you 
bring her down here,” she said, presently. 

“ He did n’t say anything about it ; but of 
course he couldn’t say anything in a tele- 


LITTLE REST . 


247 


gram. Perhaps there will he a letter — or 
she may know what he wants her to do.” 

“ He cannot want to keep her in that hotel ! 
Strange ways ! Strange ways ! ” the old lady 
repeated. 

“ He always seemed to be afraid the chil- 
dren would get — well — our ways,” said Miss 
Esther. “ I know he thinks we are very pro- 
vincial down here.” 

“ He did n’t seem to think your sister was 
provincial — before he married her.” After a 
moment’s silence, Mrs. Hartwell spoke again, 
in her deep voice. u Where is that picture, 
Essie, — that picture of Harry ? ” 

“ Mother, I put it away. I thought it 
would hurt you to see it all the time.” 

“ People have to get used to being hurt. I 
wish you ’d bring it back.” 


248 


THE LED-HOPi.SE CLAIM. 


XV. 

OLD PATHWAYS. 

Cecil had not been brought up in the 
habit of industry. To sit perfectly still and 
unemployed for an hour at a time was no 
affliction to her, as it would have been to 
Miss Esther — as it undeniably was to Miss 
Esther to see her thus listlessly drifting, day 
after day, with the tide of her thoughts. 
She spoke to her mother on the subject of 
her duty to the young girl in this respect, but 
Grandmamma Hartwell replied : — 

“ Let her alone for a while. She does n’t 
look like one who needs spurring.” 

Cecil was never troubled by the long gaze 
which her grandmother would often fix upon 
her, as they sat opposite each other by the 
fire. She made no attempt to respond to it. 
It seemed to pass beyond her own personal- 
ity, and to recall, in her face and movements, 
other faces and older histories than hers. 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


249 


But she was happier with her grandmother 
than with Miss Esther, whose hovering solici- 
tude fretted her and increased her self-con- 
sciousness. Her spirit gradually keyed itself 
to the subdued monotone of the eventless 
days, succeeding each other with the soft, 
obliterating effect of dropping water. The 
sharpness of her pain subsided into a mental 
torpor which forbade either hope or passion- 
ate repining. It would have been premature 
to call it resignation. 

Cecil did not look unhappy in these days, 
but she was not able to bear the house-life 
without long, solitary walks which had the 
effect, almost, of a voluntary religious exer- 
cise. 

On rainy days, she would stand at the win- 
dows of the cold, unused parlor, and watch 
the locust-trees rock and strain in the wind ; 
with them, in spirit, she rode out the storm. 
At twilight she was able to take her place at 
the piano, whose keys had a thin, sweet tinkle, 
like the melodies that had been played on it 
in its prime. The folding-doors were parted, 
that her grandmother, sitting by the fire in 
the back parlor, might listen to “ Joys that 


250 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


we ’ve tasted,” and “ Believe me, if all those 
endearing young charms,” until Martha came 
in with the lamp and announced that supper 
was ready. 

Cecil had found a succession of harmonies 
that fitted the words, — 

“ Oh, me, oh, me ! what frugal cheer 
My love doth feed upon,” 

and sometimes in moments of weakness she 
gave them utterance, enunciating the perilous 
syllables softly, with a sense of self-betrayal 
and of tampering with resolution. 

Fair days or cloudy always found her 
a-field, climbing the brown orchard slope be- 
hind the house and fleetly following the path 
which led down through the gap in the stone 
fence to the level meadows, below the mill- 
dam. It was a country of abrupt heights and 
hollows; in the spring, the half-hidden water- 
courses made a pleasant noise among the 
hills, but only the greater streams survived 
the summer. 

Cecil’s accustomed way took her across the 
mill-dam by the well-worn path. The leaf- 
less willows crossed their red-tipped lances in 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


251 


the sun above her head. On one side lay 
the glassy pond, and, below the wall of the 
dam, the shorn meadow, with a faint new 
greenness showing along the course of the 
waste-water from the dam. The path rose 
abruptly, beyond the mill-dam, and disap- 
peared on the wooded hill which bounded the 
eastern shore of the pond. There were no 
long outlooks here, but there was seclusion 
and peace in the narrow boundaries of the 
horizon. The sky limits were confined; there 
was no mystery of far-off line of sea or 
estranging plain. The hills were near neigh- 
bors ; their language was content rather than 
aspiration. 

Cecil’s most frequent refuge was the wood. 
Here her restless footsteps were stayed ; she 
waded into its rustling hollows, deep in fallen 
leaves ; she stood and listened to its still- 
nesses. Often she would throw herself down, 
like a burden she was weary of, on its broad, 
brown lap, letting her eyes travel upward to 
the complex tracery of tree-stems screening 
the sky, as a sick child will dully follow the 
pattern of its mother’s dress or the reflections 
in her bending eyes. 


252 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


Yet she could be merry at times, when 
other young voices were near, to catch and 
repeat the fitful note of gayety in her own. 
The young voices that sometimes echoed with 
hers through the wood belonged to two bright- 
faced lads of twelve and fourteen years, who 
appeared to enjoy more liberty than usually 
falls to the lot of schoolboys. They were 
the only boarding-pupils in the family of the 
minister, who kept a private school in the 
neighborhood. When the afternoon sunlight 
gilded the tree-stems and dappled the warm 
slopes of the wood, they were always at large, 
making the rounds of their favorite haunts ; 
visiting their quail-snares and rabbit-traps, or 
the cliestnut-trees, where the last of the crop 
lay under the leaves, or extending their cir- 
cuit to the neighboring fields in search of 
frozen-tliawed apples. Divers and many were 
their errands, but none of so pressing a nature 
that time was wanting for wrestling together 
in beds of fallen leaves or flinging surrep- 
titious armfuls of them over each other, or 
pausing on the top rail of a fence that crossed 
a hill, to wake the silent landscape with a 
shrill hoot or whistle. 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


253 


By little and little, in odd ways, a shy, 
wary comradeship had sprung up between 
this light-hearted pair and the lonely girl. 
She took no particular attitude toward them ; 
she was not motherly or sisterly. or cousinly; 
she was not even invariably friendly. Her 
mood could not be foretold. Sometimes she 
would pass them with an abstracted smile ; 
for days, perhaps, they would not exchange a 
word ; then an afternoon would find them 
following, side by side, the obscure highways 
of the wood, or seated in the shelter of a rock, 
or on some dry hill-slope, munching sweet 
withered chestnuts and talking idly, while 
the shadows crept past them before the low 
sun. 

In the early stages of their acquaintance, 
Cecil was not greatly interested in the lads 
as individuals. She liked their impersonal 
boyhood ; their calls to each other across 
intervening hills ; their ambuscades and sal- 
lies and notes of warning, their unexpected 
touches of rude sentiment ; the listening 
look in their faces, and the unconscious, 
perpetual play of life in their slim, restless 
bodies. But her observation of them was 


254 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


respectful and reticent. They were vaguely 
stimulated by it, though its outward signs 
were slight. Her companionship was a unique 
experience in the lives of the two boys. Her 
indefinite, girlish loveliness and grace of si- 
lence or of speech, the unexplained solitude 
of her musing walks, some hint of melancholy 
which they dimly felt in her presence as they 
felt the thrill in the note of the hermit-thrush 
in the heart of the spring woods, touched that 
dumb response to beauty which, in a boy’s 
nature, is often hidden in proportion to its 
•strength. To each other they seldom spoke 
of Cecil, and by a tacit understanding, when 
they were attended by their schoolmates, they 
avoided her company, as a pleasure too fine 
to be indiscriminately shared. 

Cecil was as incurious about the actual 
life and character of her two comrades as 
if she had been a veritable nymph or dryad 
of the woods, meeting them on that border- 
land of enchantment which tradition supplies 
for such mythical companionships. She heard 
them call each other Bert and Charley, and 
she inferred from their accent and bearing 
that their associations had been gentle and 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


255 


their discipline scant. They had read with 
youthful avidity and promiscuously, like boys 
who had had books within reach, with no 
one to guide their selection. 

She had no distinct preference for Bert, but 
when she talked to both boys, she looked in 
his face more often than in Charley’s. Bert’s 
eyes were dark, and his strongly marked eye- 
brows descended slightly as they approached 
each other ; when his hat was pushed hack, his 
thick, brown forelock showed below the brim ; 
his nose was still uncertain in shape. He 
laughed a great deal, showing his big, solid, 
white teeth between lips whose curves kept 
their childlike purity of outline. His face was 
deeply, richly colored ; the rims of his well- 
formed ears glowed a fine crimson against 
the slope of close-shorn hair fading into the 
lighter brown of his neck. Charley, the elder 
lad, was blonde and freckled. He had an 
honest, sensitive countenance, and eyes which 
needed only darker shading in the brows and 
lashes to bring out their beauty ; but Charley’s 
good looks were problematical, while Bert’s 
were in transition. 

It was not, however, its joyous beauty that 


256 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


drew Cecil’s eves so often to Bert’s face ; it 
was a puzzling, elusive hint which came and 
went, with its changing expressions, of another 
face she had known. The fascination of its 
recurrence grew upon her unawares; she 
watched for it, and yet shrank from it when 
it returned. It was an innocent, unaccount- 
able likeness ; its little intermittent hurt could 
hardly be said to trouble a peace that was 
not yet attained, or to rouse memories that 
had never slept. 

Early in December, the thin, gray ice that 
stilled the surface of the pond grew strong 
enough to bear skaters. The quiet of the 
neighboring hills was invaded by a confusion 
of voices and the echoes of steel-shod feet 
treading the sounding ice-floor. A light, dry 
snow fell, whitening the pathways of the 
wood. It disappeared quickly from the open 
fields, but lingered, like sifted ashes, on the 
brown leaves in the wooded hollows. 

Cecil had found a new revelation of half- 
forgotten beauty in the white precincts of the 
pond, lying, like water in a swoon, beneath 
the bright, unfruitful winter skies. She was 
still attended by her juvenile body-guard, nor 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


257 


did she covet other company. Quite uncon- 
sciously she had become a member of a triple 
alliance, which kept itself intact in the midst 
of the shifting crowd of skaters ; but she was 
under no temptation to break the tacit bond. 
The representative young ladies of Little Rest 
were of Miss Esther’s age ; its young men 
were a tradition of the days before the war. 
A subsequent and less characteristic crop had 
been reaped by the great cities or neighbor- 
ing factories, by the enticing, devouring fron- 
tier, and the equally insatiable sea. 

One Saturday evening, after sunset, Char- 
ley and Bert had kindled a fire against the 
slope of a rock that willed in one side of a 
little cove. The shore of the pond, following 
the curves of the hill, formed this miniature 
bay, where the water, sheltered from wind- 
flaws, froze into a sheet of ice, clearer than 
that of the open pond. The white, opaque 
ice-field beyond. was tinted by a rosy reflec- 
tion from the western sky ; above the frozen 
stubble-fields the new moon’s sickle gleamed. 
The skaters were leaving the pond. Cecil was 
too far lost in the enchantment of watching 
their gypsy fire brighten the edge of twilight, 
17 • 


258 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


to think of the hour, and the boys were not 
likely to remind her. 

They had piled stones to make a seat for 
her on the windward side of the fire. She sat 
with her back against the rock, her muff ex- 
tended in one hand to shield her face from the 
heat. She had a skater’s color in her cheeks, 
but her lowered lashes gave her eyes a 
dreamy look. The wood was already a mass 
of brown shadows ; around the fire-lit circle 
of faces the pale tints of the winter land- 
scape were fading. The blush color in the 
west had changed to a cold blue, in which 
the new moon gleamed more sharply, but 
as yet there were no distinct shadows. The 
white ice-sliield gathered and diffused the 
lingering light. 

The boys sat at Cecil’s feet, feeding the 
flames with snapping cedar-twigs and watch- 
ing the scattering volleys of sparks. The 
smoke-coils floated off and dispersed among 
the deepening glooms of the wood. 

Cecil was silent, confused by the awaken- 
ing of a dull heart-ache, the occasional suspen- 
sion of which she had called content. She 
was restless with the beauty of the evening. 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


259 


It rankled in her soul. Such evenings were 
for happy people, or for children, to whom 
each day was a separate existence. At that 
moment she would have given all the beauty 
that enfolded her loneliness, — hushed, dusky 
wood and glimmering pond, slumberous fields 
and softly colored twilight, lit by the crescent 
moon, — for the sky of solid rock, the yellow 
candle-rays and inky shadows of those rugged 
underground pastures where she had first 
recognized the love and the sorrow of her 
lifetime. With this or with that small cir- 
cumstance different, how different all might 
have been! The thought came to her with 
the agony of an old pain that returns after 
an interval of rest. She could not recall one 
moment of absolute happiness that she had 
ever known through Hilgard, or with him. 
Their moments together had been clouded 
by the trouble that was coming to them both ; 
but few and poor as they had been, the 
memory of them was intolerable now. 

What was it, after all, she asked herself, 
that had separated them ? No fatality of their 
past had kept her from him in his extremity. 
She would have renewed her broken prom- 


260 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM . 


ise at his death-bed, and felt that it was the 
sacrament of her life. She could think of him 
no longer as the dim-eyed figure she had left, 
prostrate on a sick-bed. But were youth and 
strength and love of life offences in him for 
which she held him accountable ? Was it not 
rather her sick faith — her doubt of herself 
as a positive and vital need to a life already 
replete? If it were possible to believe that 
wherever he might be that night he was 
thinking of her and wanting her ! If indeed 
his happiness were in her gift and he should 
ask it once more at her hands — what would 
she do with it? Would she deny him, and 
bury his hope and hers in her brother’s grave, 
— the old wrongs revenged in the old way, — 
the hard deeds of men remembered and per- 
petuated by women ! 

She rose suddenly to her feet and stood 
against the rock, receiving upon her full- 
length figure the strong red glow. The two 
lads looked up at her, half abashed at her 
loveliness. 

“ Come,” she said, “ let us put out the fire. 
We must go home! Will you go with me as 
far as the orchard ? ” She looked doubtfully 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


261 


at the lads. She had never before made even 
so small a claim as this on their friend- 
ship. 

Charley grew red with pleasure, but re- 
mained silent while Bert answered for both. 

“We ’ll go all the way. But there is a man 
coming down through the wood. Let ’s wait 
till he gets by.” 

The footsteps left the path, and came 
crashing and trampling down into the hollow 
by the rock. Bert began mentally to take an 
attitude of defiance, expecting the usual re- 
monstrance from some farmer of the neigh- 
borhood, in regard to carelessness with fire. 
As the intruder came within the circle of light, 
Bert and Charley turned to confront him. 
He was tall, youthful, and stalwart of figure, 
dressed for a winter journey, in seal-skin cap 
and belted ulster. There was a formidable 
directness in his glance and bearing. The 
hoys hesitated a moment, and then fell upon 
him with boisterous greetings, and, dragging 
him forward, presented him to Cecil as their 
brother. 

Hilgard had come down to Little Rest in 
a despairing pause of his search for Cecil. 


262 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


He was on the track of the truant lads, but 
he had not expected to find Cecil with them, 
encamped like a Romany girl, on the charmed 
edge of evening, in that remote hollow of the 
hills. It was an exquisite surprise — a rush 
of joy, so keen and sweet that it had almost 
brought the tears to his eyes. She was a 
radiant figure in the warm fire-glow, but 
there was no warmth in her greeting. 

Cecil knew that he had not come to see 
her. The bond between them seemed more 
unreal than ever in the presence of this re- 
lationship which she had not even suspected. 
As she looked at the three who had found 
each other, she discovered with a fresh pang 
that she had grown fond of the little lads. 
She must lose them too, since they belonged 
with all that she had put out of her life for- 
ever. They counted among Hilgard’s com- 
pensations, — if, indeed, he needed any, — not 
among hers. She waited in awkward misery 
for a chance to escape, while Hilgard submit- 
ted to the tumultuous questions of the boys : 
Where had he kept himself, and why had n’t 
he written? How long was he going to 
stay, and would he give them that week in 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


263 


New York with him at Christmas, as he had 
promised ? 

“ Oh, I say ! You ’re not going home with- 
out us?” they exclaimed to Cecil, who had 
turned away toward the wood-path. 

“I shall not need you. It will be light 
enough when I get on the hill.” 

She did not stop, and her manner was so 
decided that the lads hesitated, looking puz- 
zled and hurt. 

“ She asked us to go home with her,” they 
appealed to Hilgard. 

“ You must first put out that fire, every 
spark, before you leave it,” he said, in the 
tone of authority that came to his firm voice 
more readily than tones of tenderness. But 
the tenderness trembled in it the next mo- 
ment, when he had followed Cecil, and, walk- 
ing by her side, his head down close to hers, 
said, — 

“I don’t know where home is, but I am 
going there with you.” 

“Not to-night. You must leave me to- 
night.” 

“ I shall never leave you, because I shall 
never find you again, if I do.” 


264 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


Hilgard’s nerve had not quite forsaken him. 
He felt very quiet, but very desperate. From 
the shore of the pond came the boys’ clear 
treble shouts as they trod out the sparks and 
flung the brands of their fire out upon the 
ice. 

“ Cecil, let us understand each other now,” 
Hilgard continued. “Did you mean every 
word in your letter? A woman should not 
write such a letter as that to a man she does 
not mean to marry.” 

“ I told you not to come ! ” 

“ You may tell that to a sick man. I ’m 
not sick now. I have as good a right to my 
wife as any man. I have found her, and I 
mean to make her happy.” 

Cecil had stopped, moving away from his 
side in the narrow path. 

“ It is too much,” she said. “ No one could 
bear this ! ” 

“ Is my coming too much to bear ? ” 

“Your coming — and your going. It is 
cruel to keep offering me what I cannot 
take ! ” 

“ You shall take it ! ” Hilgard put his arms 
around her and held her fast, with her head 


OLD PATHWAYS. 


265 


pressed close against his turbulent heart. 
“ It is not taking, it is giving. Will you give 
me nothing for all my love ? Let us end it 
here — now. This is the only human way ! ” 

But Cecil was not yet at rest. In a moment 
she drew away from him and listened, with 
her hands against his breast, and her cheek 
turned toward the faint breeze that blew up 
from the hollow. 

“ Where are the boys ? ” she whispered. 
The moon hung low over the darkening out- 
line of the hills ; the dim landscape returned 
no sound but the rustling of the sear leaves 
in the aisles of the wood, and the slight rever- 
berations of the ice, warping with the night’s 
increasing cold. 

The lads had not been slow to perceive 
that there was a mystery of previous ac- 
quaintance between Hilgard and their girl- 
comrade, and that their company along the 
wood-path was neither missed nor desired. 
With hasty, boyish resentment, they had 
taken themselves off by another path toward 
the village. 

“ They have gone back alone,” Cecil said, 
quickly divining her offence against good- 


266 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


fellowship. “ Won’t you go after them and 
bring them back? No, you needn’t come 
back ! Stay with them, please, and make 
them understand ! ” 

Hilgard laughed, a low excited laugh of 
insecure triumph. 

“ No, indeed, I won’t ! The boys will have 
to wait. They have had their turn.” 

“ But it is not kind, and they have a right 
to you — they have not seen you for so long ! ” 

“ I have some rights, myself. They might 
have seen me if they had told me you were 
here. Can’t you spare me a little of your 
kindness for the boys ? ” 

She put up her cheek close to his bent head. 

“ I am afraid to begin — if I once began to 
be good to you — ” 


THE PATHS MEET. 


267 


XVI. 

THE PATHS MEET. 

Hilgard and Cecil were married on a wet 
May morning when the wind that blew across 
the farms bore with it the fragrance of rain- 
drenched blossoms. In the Hartwell house 
a wood-lire lit the gloom of the heavily cur- 
tained parlor, where the remnants of the two 
families were assembled to witness the mar- 
riage ceremony. Mr. Conrath did not lend 
his countenance to the proceedings, in any 
sense of the word, and it remained for the 
grandmother to give away the bride. It was 
with a stern reluctance in her heart that she 
fulfilled this duty of relationship. The two 
women who represented the family of the 
bride, wore their dull, black mourning robes, 
but Cecil, with pathetic magnanimity, had 
put on a gown as white as the happiest omens 
might have called for. 


268 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


In the pauses of the service the soft spring 
showers dashed in gusts against the window- 
panes, and rustled in the deep-mouthed chim- 
ney. The perfume of hot-house roses stole 
luxuriously upon the cool, pure air of the old- 
fashioned room, with a suggestion of the dis- 
tant city and the men and women of the world 
outside. 

The carriage had not yet come when Cecil 
entered the parlor in her travelling dress. 
Mrs. Hartwell was moving about the room 
with that restlessness upon her which is so 
much more painful to witness in a large, calm 
person than in one to whom it is habitual. 
The boys, on whom every one had counted as 
a relief to the intensity of the occasion, had 
developed an unexpected shyness of Hilgard, 
in his anomalous character of bridegroom. 
Cecil, very white about the lips and dark 
about the eyes, sat buttoning her gloves, and 
trying to listen to the clergyman’s voice, 
prosing gently through the unhappy silence. 
The fire snapped behind the ponderous brass- 
work which guarded the grate. Miss Esther 
sobbed audibly. Hilgard went out into the 
entry and waited by one of the side-lights, 


THE PATHS MEET. 269 

looking down the empty, dripping vista of 
trees. It was a relief to all, when the spat- 
tering of hoofs and the soft roll of wheels 
sounded on the wet gravel outside, and Hil- 
gard, standing in the doorway, said, “ Cecil, 
the carriage is here.” 

Mrs. Hartwell crossed the room and folded 
Cecil, with passionate deliberateness, in her 
large embrace. 

“ Oh, say one good word to him before we 
go ! ” the girl entreated, in rapid, smothered 
whispers. “ He is my husband. He is your 
son ! ” 

The grandmother straightened herself. She 
did not speak, but as she turned away her 
face and covered it with her handkerchief, 
she extended one hand to Hilgard with a 
noble and gracious gesture. He bent above 
it and kissed it reverently ; remembering that 
it was proffered by one, the latest of whose 
many sorrows had come through him ; whose 
last pledge of happiness he had made his 
own. 

That evening, Mrs. Hartwell was in her old 
seat by the fireplace in the back parlor, and 
Miss Esther was standing at the west window, 


270 


THE LED- HORSE CLAIM. 


■watching the locust boughs, heavy with their 
white blossoms, toss in the gale. The rain 
had ceased, and the struggling moonlight 
served, as it were, to make visible the wild, 
soft wind, whose voice they heard in the 
chimney, and in the creaking of vines against 
the side of the house. 

“ Esther, I wish you would set those flowers 
in the other room. I hate the scent of stale 
flowers ! ” said Mrs. Hartwell. 

“ But these roses are not faded — just look 
at them, mother ; I never saw such roses ! ” 

“ They do not please me. There were no 
such roses when I was a bride. They are 
too big and too expensive, like everything 
nowadays. The ideg* of sending such things 
to Cecil ! They are about as much like 
her — ” 

A vision of Cecil on the empty stool oppo- 
site, her elbow resting in one hand, while 
the other strayed to the pin at her throat, her 
cheek pressed against the cold marble of the 
mantel, finished the sentence for the two 
women. Miss Esther did not look at her 
mother, who spoke again, breaking the silence 
with her deep intonation. 


THE PATHS MEET. 


271 


“ Journeys, journeys, nothing but jour- 
neys ! Why could n’t they leave her here 
in peace?” 

“ Mother, you know she was not happy 
here.” 

“ She would have been happy, if he had let 
her be.” 

“ She would have been happy, perhaps, if 
she had never seen him,” Miss Esther said. 

“ She never ought to have seen him. It 
was no place for a young girl. I always said 
so. There were no such places when I was 
a girl ; the name is enough. There was no 
such West ! When people went West, they 
thought about it beforehand ; they consulted 
their friends ; families went together. They 
were a long while going, and when they got 
there, they stayed. There was none of this 
rushing back and forth, thousands of miles 
at a stretch ! ” 

“I don’t think it is the journey Cecil 
minds. And he will take good care of her.” 

“He take care of her! He is nothing but 
a boy, himself.” 

“ You cannot deny, mother, that he has a 
manly look — ” 


272 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


“ His looks are well enough. Thev are 
nothing but boy and girl, both of them. They 
might have waited five or ten years ; it would 
have been more fitting, to say the least.” 

“ If they had waited, something else would 
have happened, very likely. I think it is bet- 
ter to marry young — ” 

“ Than not to marry at all ? ” Mrs. Hart- 
well interrupted with scorn. “ Why is n’t it 
respectable for a woman, now and then, to 
stay at home and keep things together for 
those who go and make a shipwreck of it ? 
Why could n’t she have been to you what you 
have been to me ? ” 

“ No, mother. I would not have had that! ” 
“ Have you found it so hard ? ” 

“ Mother, you should be the last to ask 
that! You know it is all the life I could 
have had. But it would have crushed Cecil, 
after what was past. And it would n’t have 
been fair to him.” 

“ He seems to have been quite able to look 
out for himself.” She had sunk, from the 
effort by which, at the last, she had accepted 
Hilgard, into a querulous bitterness towards 
him that would last while the reaction lasted. 


THE PATHS MEET. 


273 


“Those were nice boys — his brothers,” she 
added, more gently. 

“ Half-brothers,” Miss Esther corrected. 

“One of them is very like him in looks,” 
her mother continued. “ Did you say they 
were staying here ? What can they be doing 
here ? ” 

“ They are pupils of Mr. Lyle’s.” 

“Well, that isn’t a bad place for them. 
When you send out the cake, Esther, I wish 
you would send them plenty — what boys call 
plenty. Perhaps Mr. Lyle will let them come 
up to tea, some Sunday night.” 

“ He might like to come with them,” Miss 
Esther suggested, meekly. 

“ I dare say he would, hut I don’t think I 
care about him. He is well enough, but the 
boys will have a better time without liim.”- 

Miss Esther carried the roses into the front 
parlor, where she remained a few moments, 
setting chairs back into their places, and 
closing shutters for the night. She paused 
before the open piano, and laid her hand on 
the cold, soundless key-hoard. The worn 
ivory sank under her touch, breaking the 
stillness of the room with its helpless dis- 
18 


274 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


cord. She closed the piano with a dull clap of 
the lid, and leaned upon it while the murmurs 
of the imprisoned chords within prolonged the 
sound. To her wistful ear the room was 
haunted by echoes of dumb music, — songs 
that had been sung there; quick, unsteady 
sallies of childish feet; laughter of young 
girls ; whispered vows that death had broken ; 
stifled sobs and prayers for the dead. 

“ Esther, I want you,” her mother called, 
from the inner room. “ Come close to me, 
child. We have got the house all to ourselves 
again. Do you think I am a hard old woman ? 
Oh, I miss my children ! I miss them every 
day and every night.” She reached out 
blindly and gathered her daughter into her 
arms. “ I had set my foolish old heart upon 
the child. She was the last one. She filled 
the empty place. She suited me.” 

“ She suited him, too,” Miss Esther said, in 
a broken voice. “ She suited us all ! Even 
her father was proud of her — though he said 
she had no manner, and never would have ! ” 

“ Manner ! ” the old lady repeated, wrath- 
fully. “ She had heart ! ” They spoke of Cecil 
as if she were already with the past, in which 
their thoughts habitually dwelt. 


EXIT SHOSHONE. 


275 


XVII. 

EXIT SHOSHONE. 

The successor of Hilgard and Conrath in 
the management of the Consolidated Led- 
Horse and Shoshone mines was one day 
searching out the corner monuments of the 
original claims. 

The young pines in the gulch — which, in- 
stead of dividing, now united the two prop- 
erties — had counted another circle of con- 
centric growth. The aspens again bore their 
frail golden fleece, a prize for the rapacious 
autumn winds. The Shoshone dwelling- 
house had been converted into a miners’ 
boarding-house, presided over by Molly, the 
wife of the ex-timberman, now night foreman 
on the Led-Horse division, and the path 
where Cecil had taken her solitary walks was 
graded into a road for ore-wagons. 

The history of the Led-Horse and the 
Shoshone was the history of the camp, epito- 


276 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


mized. The stormy beginning of days was 
over ; the illegitimate forces were under con- 
trol, and such a rude challenge as that which 
had tested Hilgard’s leadership had not been 
known in the camp since his effectual and 
impressive acceptance of the issue. The 
public value of his deed it was not given him 
to know. He had only known its sharp re- 
coil upon himself. 

The superintendent was studying the in- 
scriptions on the low monument stones in the 
bottom of the gulch. A slight golden glitter 
led his eyes to the spot where a ring lay, half 
embedded in the brown pine-needles, which 
had borne the weight of the winter’s snows. 

He rubbed away the earth clinging to the 
words heavily embossed on its outer circle : 
Dieu vous garde. In the inner circle he read 
the faint lettering : C. C. from H. C. He 
slipped the ring on his smallest finger; it 
would not pass the middle joint. 

The superintendent had heard of Conrath’s 
sister, the fair young girl who had presided 
over the Shoshone household during its 
stormiest epoch, and had vaguely wondered 
what part, if any, might have been hers in its 



CECIL’S RING 




Copy n<T?*ive rr H-> and filed 
in series LC-LSZ 62 : 


EXIT SHOSHONE. 


277 


history. He was not so mature as to have 
lost sight of the fateful nature of the femi- 
nine element, even in mining complications, 
but he had not found it easy to believe in the 
existence of a young girl, such as Miss Con- 
rath had been described, in such a place, 
under such circumstances. It had been his 
experience that women generally fitted the 
places where they were found, and the men 
who were their companions. Here, however, 
was presumptive proof of civilized feminine 
occupation at an early period of the Shoshone 
history. He carried the ring a week or more, 
each day intending to express it eastward, 
and finally sent it, directed to the office of 
the Consolidated Company, to be forwarded 
to Miss Conrath. It was not without a faint 
sentiment of regret that he parted with the 
one gentle association connected with the 
story of the Shoshone tragedy. 

He leaned against the counter of the ex- 
press office, waiting for his receipt, and watch- 
ing, meanwhile, the weighing of one of those 
long pine boxes which form part of the freight 
of every overland train. 

“ Who is that they ’re shipping East ?” ono 


278 


THE LED-HORSE CLAIM. 


of the loungers at the counter inquired of 
the express agent. 

“Don’t you remember — young fellow got 
shot, up at the Shoshone, a year ago ? ” 

“ Oh, yes — jumpin’ scrape, was n’t it ? ” 

“ Yes. He just about closed out the jumpin’ 
business in this camp.” 

“I thought they planted him for good,” 
another voice struck in. “ They made row 
enough about it ! ” 

“ Oh, that was Gashwiler’s racket. Pity 
they had n’t planted him instead ! ” 

“What’s come of old Gash?” the first 
speaker asked, of the company, generally. 

“ Last I heard of him he was stealin’ 
Indian ponies over on the reservation.” 

“ Two ninety-seven,” the man at the scale 
called to the clerk. He printed the number 
of pounds weight upon the lid of the box, 
and swept, with one stroke of his marking- 
brush, a black circle around the figures. 

Conrath was going home at last. The 
camp lightly remembered his misdeeds; but 
the women who had waited long for his body 
to be brought to them from the alien soil where 
it had lain, kept a different record — a record 


EXIT SHOSHONE. 


279 


in which all was forgotten save the good they 
had known of him. 

They made his grave beside an older one, 
the headstone of which bore the name of 
Cecilia Hartwell, wife of Robert Conrath, 
who had died in the twenty-eighth year of her 
life and the sixth year of her marriage. The 
matted growth of periwinkle which had woven 
its coverlet of dark and shining leaves above 
the mother’s bed, before another winter’s 
snows had whitened it and another summer 
had starred it with purple blossoms had 
crept half across the new-made grave. One 
might fancy the mother, in her sleep, reaching 
out unconsciously and covering her child. 


University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 


% 






A LIST OF BOOKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co. 


Any booh on this list sent postpaid on receipt of the adver- 
tised price. 


AMERICAN-ACTOR SERIES (The). Edited by Lau- 
rence Hutton. A series of volumes by the best ‘writers, embracing 
the lives of the most famous American Actors. Illustrated. Each in 
one vol. 12mo. $1.25. Now ready : Forrest, the Booths , the Jef- 
fersons, Charlotte Cushman, Mrs. Duff, Fechter. 

ANGELES (Dr. IIenry C.) Records of the Late William 

M. Hunt. With Illustrations. 1vol. Small 4to. $1.50. 

ARNOLD’ S (George) Poems. Edited, with a Biographi- 
cal Sketch of the Poet, by William Winter. With Portrait and 
Illustrations. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth, $1.50. Half-calf, $3.00. Morocco 
antique or tree-calf, $4.00. 

AUSTIN’ S (Jane G) Nantucket Scraps; or, The Expe- 
riences of an Off-Islander, in Season and out of Season, among a 
Passing People. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.50. 

BACON’S (Henry) Parisian Art and Artists. 1 vol. 8vo. 

Profusely Illustrated. $3.00. 

BARRETT’ S (Lawrence) Edwin Forrest. Yol. I. of the 

American- Actor Series. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 

BARTLETT’S (Truman II.) The Life of the late Dr. 

William Rimmer. With Illustrations after his Paintings, Drawinge, 
and Sculptures. 1 vol. 4to. Full gilt. $10.00. 

BENT’S (Samuel Arthur) Short Sayings of Great Men. 

1 vol. 8vo. Uniform with “Familiar Allusions,” $3.00. Half- 
calf, $5.50. 



2 


A List of Books Published by 


BILLY BLEW-AW AY’S ALPHABETICAL , ORTHO - 

GRAPHICAL, AND PHILOLOGICAL PICTURE-BOOK for 
Learners. Lazy Hour Series. 1 vol. Oblong 8vo. 75 cents. 

BLACKBURN’ S (Henry) Breton Folk: An Artistic Tour 

in Normandy. With 170 Illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. 
lvol. Small 4to. $1.50. 

BLAINE’ S (Hon. James G.) Eulogy on James Abram 

Garfield. 1 vol. 16mo. With Portrait. 50 cents. 

BOSTON , The Memorial History of. Including the 

Present County of Suffolk. 1630-1880. Seventy eminent Collabora- 
tors. 4vols. 4to. Copiously illustrated. Send for Prospectus. 

BOWEN’ S (Clarence YV.) The Boundary Disputes of 

Connecticut. 1 vol. 4to. With Portrait of Gov. Winthrop, and 
17 maps. $5.00. 

BUDGE’ S (Ernest A.) The History of Esarhaddon, King 

of Assyria, B.C. 681-668. 8vo. Gilt top. $4.00. 

BURNETT’ S (Mrs. Frances Hodgson) A Fair Barba- 
rian. lvol. 16mo. $1.00. 

CARLYLE (Thomas) and RALPH WALDO EMERSON , 

The Correspondence of. Edited by Charles Eliot Norton. 2 vols. 
12mo. Gilt tops and rough edges. With new Portraits. $4.00. 
Half-calf, $8.00. 

CESNOLA’S (Gen. L. P. di) The Cesnola Collection 

of Cyprus Antiquities. A Descriptive and Pictorial Atlas. Large 
folio. 500 Plates. Sold by subscription only. 

CHAMBERLAIN’S (Basil. Hall) The Classical Poetry 

of the Japanese. 1 vol. 8vo. Gilt top. $3.00. 

CHENOWETII’S (Mrs. C. Van D.) Stories of the 

Saints. Beautifully illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. 

CLARKE’ S (Mrs. Asia Booth) The Elder and the 

Younger Booth. Vol. III. Araerican-Actor Series. Illustrated. $1.25. 

CLARKE’ S (Rev. James Freeman) Self-Culture. 1 vol. 

12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Half-calf, $3.00. 

Events and Epochs in Religious History. 

1 vol. Crown 8vo. With many Illustrations. $3.00. 

CLEMENT’ S (Clara Erskine) A Handbook of Legen- 
dary and Mythological Art. With a profusion of Descriptive Illustra- 
tions. Fourteenth Edition, with Revisions and New Illustrations. 
1 vol. Crown 8vo. $3.00. Half-calf, $5.00. Tree-calf, $7.00. 

Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Engravers, 

and their Works. Sixth Edition, with Revisions and New Illustra- 
tions. 1 vol. Crown Svo. $3.00. Half-calf, $5.00. Tree-calf, $7.00. 

Eleanor Maitland. A Kovel. lGmo. $1.25. 

Charlotte Cushman. Vol. IV. of the Amer- 

ican-Actor Series. Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.25. 

CLEMMER’ S (Mary) Poems of Life and Nature. 1 vol. 

12mo. $1.50. 


James R. Osgood & Co. 


3 


COLLING' S (J. K.) Art-Foliage. Entirely new Plates 

from the latest enlarged London Edition. Cloth. Folio. $10.00. 

CONGDON’ S (Charles T.) Reminiscences of a Journal- 
ist. 1 vol. 12mo. With Portrait. Cloth, $1.50. Half-calf, $3.00. 

CONWA Y’S (Moncure D.) Emerson at Home and Abroad. 

1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

COOKE’S (George Willis) Ralph Waldo Emerson : His 

Life, Writings, and Philosophy. 1 vol. Crown 8vo. $2.00. 

COOKE’ S (Mrs. Laura S. II.) Dimple Dopp. A beau- 
tiful illustrated juvenile. Small 4to, elegantly hound. $1.50. 
COOKE’S (Rose Terry) Somebody’s Neighbors. 1 vol. 

12mo. Cloth, $1.50. Half-calf, $3.00. 

CRANE’ S (Walter) The First of May. A Fairy Masque. 

With 57 designs by Walter Crane. 1 vol. Oblong folio. $2.50. 

DAHLGREN’ S (Mrs. Madeleine Vinton) Memoir of 

John A. Dahlgren, Rear-Admiral U. S. Navy. 1vol. 8vo. With 
Portrait and Illustrations. $3.00. 

South-Sea Sketches. 12mo. $1.50. 

South-Mountain Magic. 1vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

DAMEN’S GHOST. Vol. VI., Round-Robin Series. $1.00. 
DANENHOWER’S (Lieut. J. W.) Narrative of “The 

Jeannette.” 1vol. 12mo. Portrait and Illustrations. 25 cents. 

DAVIDSON’ S (J. M.) Eminent English Liberals. $1.25. 
DESMOND HUNDRED (The). Vol. XL of the Round- 

Robin Series of anonymous novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

DOCTOR BEN. Vol. XIII. , Round- Robin Series. $1.00. 
DODGE’S (Theodore A., U.S.A.) The Campaign of 

Chancellorsville. 1 vol. 8vo. With 4 colored Maps. $3.00. 

DOROTHEA. Vol. X., Round-Robin Series. lGmo. $1.00. 
DU MA URIER’S (George) Pictures from Society. 50 

full-page Pictures from Punch. 1 vol. 4to. Full gilt. $5.00. 

EAST WICK’ S (Edward B.) The Gulistan; or, Rose Gar- 
den of Shekh Mushlin’ddin Sadi of Shiraz. 8vo. Gilt top. $3.50. 

ESSAYS FROM THE CRITIC. By Burroughs, 

Stedman, Stoddard, Whitman, etc. 1vol. 12mo. Gilt top. $1.25. 

FA N CHE T TE. Vol. XV., Round-Robin Series. $1.00. 
FA VORITE-A UTIIORS SERIES : 

FA VORI TE A UTIIORS \ A Companion-Book of Prose 

and Poetry. With Steel Portraits. 1 vol. 12mo. Full gilt. Cloth, 
$2.00. Half-calf, $4.00. Morocco antique, $5.00. 

HOUSEHOLD FRIENDS for Every Season. 10 Steel 

Portraits. 1 vol. 12mo. Full gilt. Cloth, $2.00. Half-calf, $4.00. 
Morocco antique, $5.00. 

GOOD COMPANY FOR EVERY DAY IN THE 

YEAR. With Steel Portraits. 1 vol. 12mo. Full gilt. Cloth, 
$2.00. Half-calf, $4.00. Morocco antique, $5.00. 


4 


A List of Books Published by 


FEATHERMAN’S (A.) Aramaeans: Social History of the 

Races of Mankind. 8vo. Uncut edges. Gilt top. 664 pages. $5.00. 

FIELD'S (Kate) Charles Albert Fechter. Vol. VI. of 

the American-Actor Series. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 

FOOTE' S (Mary Hallock) The Led-Horse Claim. 1 vol. 

16mo. $1.25. 

FORBES’S (Archibald) Glimpses through the Cannon- 

Smoke. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.00. 

FROMENTIN’S (E ) The Old Masters of Belgium and 

Holland. Translated by Mrs. Mary C. Robbins. $3.00. 

FULLER' S (Albert W.) Artistic Homes in City and 

Country. Oblong folio. 44 full-page Illustrations. $3.50. 

GARDNER’ S (E. C.) Homes, and How to Make Them. 

30 Illustrations. 1 vol. Square 12mo. $1.50. 

Home Interiors. Illustrated with 62 Plates 

designed by the Author. 1 vol. Square 12mo. $1.50. 

Illustrated Homes. Illustrated with 51 Plates 

designed by the Author. 1 vol. Square 12mo. $1.50. 

GARFIELD (President James Abram), The Works of. 

Edited by Burke A. Hmsdale. 2 vols. 8vo. With new Steel Por- 
traits. Cloth, $6.00. Sheep, $8.50. Morocco, $10.00. Sold by 
subscription only. 

GAYARRE’ S (Charles) Aubert Dubayet; or, The Two 

Sister Republics. 1 vol. 12mo. With steel frontispiece. $2.00. 

GEORGIANS { The). Vol. III., Round-Robin Series. $1.00. 

GERALDINE : A Souvenir of the St. Lawrence. A poet- 

ical romance. 1 vol. 16rao. $1.25. 

GODFREY’ S (George F.) A Sketch of Bangor. With 

14 full-page Ileliotypes. Illuminated covers. $2.50. 

GOETHE’ S Faust. Translated into English Prose by A. 

Hayward. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.25. 

GORDON’S (Gen. George II.) A War Diary of Events 

in the War of the Great Rebellion, 1863-1865. With three Maps 
and three Illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo. $3.00. 

GRANT’ S (Robert) Confessions of a Frivolous Girl. 1 
vol. 16mo. $1.25. 

The Lambs: A Satire on Wall Street. Illumi- 

nated. $1.00. 

GREENOUGir S (Mrs. Richard) Mary Magdalene: a 

Poem. In unique London binding. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

GUSTAFSON’S (Mrs. Zadel Barnes) Genevieve Ward. 

A Biographical Sketch. With Illustrations. 1 vol. $1.25. 

HALE’S (Lucretia P.) The Peterkin Papers. 8 Illus- 
trations. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00. 


James R. Osgood & Co. 


5 


II ALL’ S (G. Stanley, Pii.D.) Aspects of German Culture. 

A Volume of Essays and Criticisms. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

HARTING’ S (James Edmund, F.L.S., F.Z.S.) British 

Animals Extinct within Historic Times. 8vo. Gilt top. $4.50. 

HASSARD’ S (John R. G.) A Pickwickian Pilgrimage. 

1 vol. Small 16mo. $1.00. 

HAWTHORNE’ S (Nathaniel) Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret. 

1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

HAYWARD’S (Almira L.) The Illustrated Birthday Book 

of American Poets. $1.00. Iialf-calf, $2.25. Flexible morocco, $3.50. 

Chimes and Rhymes for Holiday Times. 

Illustrated, $1.00. Half-calf, $2.25. Flexible morocco, $3.00. 

HELIOTYPE GALLERIES. Elegant quarto volumes, 

with Descriptive Text and full-page Heliotype Engravings. 

GEMS OF THE DRESDEN GALLERY. 20 

Heliotypes, with Descriptions. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

THE GOETHE GALLERY. 21 Heliotypes, from 

the Original Drawings by Wilhelm von Kaulbach. With 
Explanatory Text. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

ENGRA VINGS FROM LANDSEER. 20 full-page 

Heliotypes. With a Biography of Landseer. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

STUDIES FROM RAPHAEL. 24 choice Heliotypes 

from Raphael’s celebrated Paintings. With Text by M. T. B. 
Emeric-David, of the Institute of France. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

THE TITIAN GALLERY. 20 large Heliotypes 

of Titian’s chef-d’o&uvres. With a Biography. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

TOSCHI’S ENGRA VINGS , from Frescos by Correggio 

and Parmegiano. 24 Heliotypes. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

THE GALLERY OF GREAT COMPOSERS. Fine 

Portraits of Bach, Handel, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 
Schubert, Von Weber, Mendelssohn, Schuman, Meyerbeer, and 
Wagner. Biographies by Rimbault. 4to. Full gilt. $7.50. 

HINSDALE’ S (President B. A.) President Garfield and 

Education. 1 vol. 12mo. With Steel Portraits of President Gar- 
field, Mrs. Garfield, etc. $1.50. 

HOMOSELLE. Vol. V. , Round-Robin Series. 16mo. $1.00. 
HOUSE’S (Edward H.) Japanese Episodes. 1 vol. 

16mo. $1.00. 

HOWARD’ S (Blanche Willis) Aunt Serena. $1.25. 
HOWELLS’ S (William D.) A Fearful Responsibility, 

and other Stories. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

Dr. Breen’s Practice. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

A Modern Instance. 16mo. $1.50. 

— The Sleeping Car. 32mo. 


6 


A List of Books Published by 


HOWITT’ S (Mary) Mabel on Midsummer Day: a Story 

of the Olden Time. With 12 Silhouettes by Helen M. Hinds. 
1 vol. 4to. $1.50. 

H U NNE WE LL ’ S (J. F.) Bibliography of Charlestown, 

Muss., and Bunker Hill. 1 vol. 8vo. Illustrated. $2.00. 

HUTCHINSON’S (Ellen M.) Songs and Lyrics. 1 vol. 

16mo. $1.25. 

IRELAND’ S (Joseph 1ST.) Mrs. Duff. Vol. Y. of the 

Amcrican-Actor Series. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. $1.25. 

JAMES’S (Henry, jun.) The Siege of London, The Pen- 
sion Beaurepas, and The Point of View. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

JENKINS’ S (Edward) A Paladin of Finance. 1 vol. 

16mo. $1.00. 

JEWISH AN1) CHRISTIAN HISTORY. 3 vols. 12rno. 

With beautiful full-page illustrations. Cloth, $4.50. Half-calf, $9.00. 

JOHNSON’ S (Rossiter) Idler and Poet. 1 vol. 16mo. 

$1.25. 

JOHNSTON’S (Elizabeth Bryant) Original Portraits of 

Washington.. About seventy Heliotype Portraits, with Descriptive 
History of each. 1 vol. 4to. $10.00. 

KEENE’ S (Charles) Our People. 400 Pictures from 

Punch. 1vol. 4to. Full gilt. $5.00. 

KENDRICK’ S (Professor A. C.) Our Poetical Favorites. 

First, Second, and Third Series. 3 vols. 12mo. In cloth, per vol., 
$2.00. Half-calf, per vol., $4.00. Morocco or tree-calf, $5.00. 

KING’S (Clarence) Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada. 

1 vol. 12mo. With Maps. Revised and enlarged Edition. $2.00. 

KING’S (Edward) The Gentle Savage. 1vol. 12mo. $2.00. 
LATH HOP’ S (George Parsons) In the Distance. A 

novel. 1vol. 16mo. $1.25. 

LEONE. Yol. XII., Round- Robin Series. 16mo. $1.00. 
LEOPARDI (Giacomo), The Essays and Dialogues of. 

Translated from the Italian, with Biographical Sketch, by Charles 
Edwardes. 1 vol. $3.00. 

LESSON IN LOVE (A). Yol. II. of the Round-Robin 

Series of anonymous novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

LIEBER, The Life and Letters of Francis. Edited by 

T. S. Perry. 8vo. With Portrait, $3.00. Half-calf, $5.50. 

MACH [A VELLI’S (NrccoLo) Historical, Political, and 

Diplomatic Works. Translated from the Italian by C. E. Dctmold. 
4 vols. 8vo. With steel frontispieces. In box, $15.00. Half-calf, 
$30.00. 

MADAME LUCAS. Yol. VIII., Round- Robin Series. 
$ 1 . 00 . 

MADDEN’S (Frederic W., M.R.A.S., M. Num. Soc., 

etc.) The Coins of the Jews. Illustrated with 270 Woodcuts 
(chiefly by the eminent artist-antiquary, F. W. Fairholt, F.S.A.) 
and a plate of Alphabets. $12.00. 


James R. Osgood & Co. 


7 


MEREDITH'S (Owen) Lucile. Entirely new Edition, 

from new plates, with 160 Illustrations. Elegantly bound, with full 
gilt edges, in box. 1 vol. 8vo. $6.00. Morocco or tree-calf, $10. 

NAMELESS NOBLEMAN (A). Vol. I. of the Round- 

Robin Series of novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

NARJOUX’S (Felix) Journey of an Architect in the 

North-west of Europe. Fully illustrated. 8vo. $2.00. 

NORMAN’S (Henry) An Account of the Harvard Greek 

Play. With 15 Heliotypes from life. 1 vol. Small 4to. $2.50. 

NORTON’ S (C. B.) American Inventions and Improve- 
ments in Breech-Loading Small Arms, Heavy Ordnance, Machine 
Guns, Magazine Arms, Fixed Ammunition, Pistols, Projectiles, Ex- 
plosives, and other Munitions of War. Second edition. 4to. With 
75 engravings, steel plates, and plates in color. $10.00. 

OSGOOD’S AMERICAN GUIDE-BOOKS: 

NEW ENGLAND. With 17 Maps and Plans. 1vol. 

16mo. Flexible cloth. $1.50. 

THE MIDDLE STATES. With 22 Maps and Plans. 

1 vol. 16mo. Flexible cloth. $1.50. 

THE MARITIME PROVINCES. With 9 Maps and 

Plans. 1 vol. 16mo. Flexible cloth. $1.50. 

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS. With 6 Maps and 6 

Panoramas. 1 vol. 16mo. Flexible cloth. $1.50. 

OSGOOD’S POCKET-GUIDE TO EUROPE. 1 vol. 

32mo. With 6 maps. Revised edition of 1883. $1.50. 

PALMER’ S (Mrs. Henrietta Lee) Home-Life in the 

Bible. Edited by John W. Palmer. 220 Illustrations. 8vo. $3.50. 
Leather, library style, $5.50. Half-calf or half-morocco, $6.50. 

PATTY’S PERVERSITIES. Vol. IY. of the Round- 

Robin Series of anonymous novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN (The) of General McClellan 

in 1862. 1 vol. 8vo. With maps. $3.00. 

PERRY’S (Nora) A Book of Love Stories. lGmo. $1.00. 
PL YMPTON’S (Miss A. G.) The Glad Year Round. $2.50. 
POETS AND ETCHERS. A sumptuous volume of 

twenty full-page etchings, by James D. Smiliie, Samuel Column, 
A. F. Bellows, H. Farrer, R. Swain Gifford, illustrating poems by 
Longfellow, Whittier, Bryant, Aldrich, etc. 4to. Elegantly bound. 
$10.00. Also limited editions on China and Japan paper. 

POOLE’S (William Frederick, LL.D ) An Index to 

Periodical Literature. 1 vol. Royal 8vo. $15.00. Sheep, $17.00. 
Half morocco, $18.00. 

PREBLE’ S (Rear-Admiral George Henry) History 

of the Flag of the United States of America. Third revised Edition. 
Illustrated with 10 colored plates, 206 engravings on wood, 6 maps, 
and 18 autographs. 1vol. Full royal 8vo. 815 pages. $7.50. 


8 


A List of Books Published by 


PRESTON’ S (Miss H. W.) The Georgies of Vergil. $1.00. 
The Same. With red rules and initials. 

Illustrated. 1 vol. Small 4to. $2.00. 

PUTNAM’ S (J. Pickering) The Open Fireplace in all 

Ages. With 300 cuts (53 full-page) and 20 new plates of Interior 
Decorations by American Architects. Second thousand , revised and 
enlarged. 1 vol. 12mo. $4.00. 

RACHEL’S SHARE OF TllE ROAD. Vol. XIV. of 

the Round-Robin Series of novels. $1.00. 

RENAN’ S (Ernest) English Conferences. Rome and 

Christianity : Marcus Aurelius. 1vol. 16mo. 75 cents. 

REVEREND IDOL (A). A Novel. 1vol. 12mo. $1.50. 
RICHARDSON’S (Abby Sage) Old Love Letters, or 

Letters of Sentiment. Written by persons eminent in English Lit- 
erature and History. 1 vol. Little Classic size. $1.25. 

ROSEMARY AND RUE. Vol. VII. of the Round-Robin 

Series of anonymous novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

SANBORN’ S (Kate) Purple and Gold. Choice Poems 

on the Golden Rod and Aster. Illustrated by Rosina Emmet. 
Printed on leaflets, bound with purple ribbon. $1.25. 

Grandma’s Garden. Illuminated covers by 

Walter Satterlee. Leaflets. $1.25. 

• Literature Lessons. Printed separately on 

sheets. Price for each author , 25 cents. 

Sunshine Calendar for Every Day in the 

Year. With design by J. W. Champney (“ Champ ”). $1.00. 

SANGSTER’ S (Margaret E.) Poems of the Household. 

16mo. $1.50. 

SARGENT’ S (Mrs. John T.) Sketches and Reminiscences 

of the Radical Club. Illustrated. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $2.00. 
Full gilt, $2.50. Half-calf, $4.00. 

SCIIIEFNER’S (Professor) Tibetan Tales. 1 vol. $5 00. 
SCOTT’S (Sir Walter) The Lady of the Lake. 1 vol. 

8vo. In box. 120 illustrations. The sumptuous gift-book. $6.00. 
Tree-calf or antique morocco, $10.00. 

SENSIER’S (Alfred) Jean-Frantjois Millet: Peasant and 

Painter. Translated by Helena de Kay. With Illustrations. 
1 vol. Square 8vo. $3.00. 

SHALE R (Professor N. S) and DAVIS’S (Wm. M.) 

Illustrations of the Earth’s Surface. Part I. Glaciers. Copiously 
illustrated with Ileliotypes. Large folio. $10.00. 

SHJEDD’S (Mrs. Julia A.) Famous Painters and Paint- 
ings. Revised and enlarged Edition. With 13 full-page Heliotypes. 
1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00. Half-calf, $5.00. Tree-calf, $7.00. 

Famous Sculptors and Sculpture. With 13 full- 

page Ileliotypes. 1 vol. 12mo. Cloth, $3.00. Half-calf, $5.00. 
Tree-calf, $7.00. 


James R. Osgood & Co 


9 


SIIERRATT’S (R. J.) The Elements of Hand-Railing. 

38 Plates. Small folio. $2.00. 

SIKES'S (Wirt) British Goblins, Welsh Folk-Lore, Fairy 

Mythology, Legends, and Traditions. Illustrated. 8vo. $4.00. 

SIMCOX'S (Editii) Episodes in the Lives of Men, Women, 

and Lovers. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00. 

STILLMANN'S (J. D. B., A.M., M D.) The Horse in 

Motion, as shown in a series of views by instantaneous photography, 
with a study on animal mechanics, founded on the revelations of the 
camera, in which the theory of quadrupedal locomotion is demon- 
strated. With anatomical illustrations in chromo, after drawings by 
Hahn. With a preface by Leland Stanford. Royal 4to. $10.00. 

SWEET SER' S (M. F.) Artist- Biographies. Illustrated 

with 12 Heliotypes in each volume. 16mo. Cloth. $1.50 each. 
Vol. I. Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo. 

Vol. II. Titian, Guido Reni, Claude Lorraine. 

Vol. III. Sir Joshua Reynolds, Turner, Landseer. 

Vol. IV. Diirer, Rembrandt, Van Dyck. 

Vol. V. Fra Angelico, Murillo, Allston. 

The set, in cloth, 5 vols., $7.50. Half-calf, $15.00. Tree-calf, 
$25.00. The same are also published in smaller volumes, one 
biography in each. 15 vols. 18mo. Per vol., 50 cents. 

SYMONDS'S (John Addington) New and Old: a 

Volume of Verse. 1vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

TALLAHASSEE GIRL (A). Yol. IX. of the Round- 

Robin Series of anonymous novels. 16mo. $1.00. 

TENNYSON'S (Alfred) A Dream of Fair W r omen. 

40 Illustrations. Arabesque binding. 1 vol. 4to. $5.00. In 
Morocco antique or tree-calf, $9.00. 

Ballads and other Poems. Author’s 

Edition, with Portrait. 1 vol. 16mo. 50 cents. 

THACKERAY (William M.), The Ballads of. Complete 

illustrated Edition. Small 4to. Elegantly bound. $3.00. 

THOMAS A KEMPIS'S The Imitation of Christ. With 

300 Medimval Vignettes. lGmo. Red edges. $1.50. 

TOWNSEND' S (Mary Ashley) Down the Bayou, and 

other Poems. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50. 

TOWNSEND' S (S. Nugent) Our Indian Summer in the 

Far West. Illustrated with full-page Photographs of Scenes in 
Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, etc. 1vol. 4to. $20.00. 

TWA IN'S (Mark) The Prince and the Pauper. With 200 

Illustrations by the best artists. Elegantly bound. 1vol. Square 
8vo. $3.00. Sold by subscription only. 

. The Stolen White Elephant, etc. 1 vol. 16mo. 

$1.25. 

UNDERWOOD'S (Francis II.) Henry Wadsworth Long- 
fellow. A Biographical Sketch. 1 vol. 12mo. Illustrated. $1.50. 


10 


James B. Osgood & Co. 


UNDERWOOD' 1 S James Russell Lowell. A Biographical 

Sketch. 1 vol. 8vo. Illustrated. $1.50. 

UPTON’ S (George P.) Woman in Music. With Ilelio- 

type Illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. Half-calf, $4.00. 

VIOLLET-LE-DUC’ S (E.-E.) Discourses -on Architecture. 

With 18 large Plates and 110 Woodcuts. Vol. I. 8vo. $5.00. 

Discourses on Architecture. 

Vol. H. With Steel Plates, Chromos, and Woodcuts. 8vo. $5.00. 

The Story of a House. Illustrated 

with 62 Plates and Cuts. 1vol. 12mo. $2.00. 

The Habitations of Man in all 

A^es. With 103 Illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. 

Annals of a Fortress. With 85 

Illustrations. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. 

WARNER’ S (Charles Dudley) The American News- 
paper : an Essay. 1vol. 32mo. 25 cents. 

WARREN’S (Joseph H., M.D.) A Practical Treatise 

on Hernia. New Edition, enlarged and revised. 8vo. $5.00. 

WEDGWOOD’S (Hensleigh) Contested Etymologies in 

the Dictionary of the Rev. W. W. Skeat. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.00. 

WEEKS’S (Lyman H.) Among the Azores. 1 vol. 

Square 16mo. With Map and 25 Illustrations. $1.50. 

WHEELER’S (William A.) Familiar Allusions. A 

Handbook of Miscellaneous Information, including the names of 
celebrated statues, paintings^ palaces, country-seats, ruins, churches, 
ships, streets, clubs, natural curiosities, etc. Completed and edited 
by Charles G. Wheeler. 1 vol. Royal 8vo. $3.00. Half-calf, $5.50. 

WHIST , American or Standard. By G. W. P. Second 

Edition revised. 1 vol. 16mo. $1.00. 

WILLI AMS’ S (Alfred M.) The Poets and Poetry of 

Ireland. With Historical and Critical Notes. 12mo. $2.00. 

WINCKELMANN’S (John) The History of Ancient 

Art. Translated by Dr. G. II. Lodge. 78 Copper-plate Engrav- 
ings. 2 vols. 8vo. Cloth, $9.00. Half-calf, $18.00. Morocco 
antique or tree-calf, $25.00. 

WINTER’S (William) Poems. Revised Edition. 1 vol, 

lGmo. Cloth, $1.50. Half-calf, $3.00. Morocco or tree-calf, $4.00. 

The Trip to England. With full-page Illustra- 

tions by Joseph Jefferson. 1 vol. 16mo. $2.00. Half-calf, 

$4.00. Morocco antique or tree-calf, $5.00. 

The Life, Stories, and Poems of John Brougham. 

Edited by W. Winter. 1vol. 12mo. Illustrated. $2.00.^ 

Fitz- James O’Brien’s Tales, Sketches, and 

Poems. Edited by W. Winter. 12mo. $2.00. 

The Jefferson s. Vol. II. of the American- 

Actor Series. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.25. 





* 



















